Louis Seize Roi des Francais
18th century
Medium
Stipple engraving with hand coloring
Dimensions
sheet: 12 3/16 x 7 3/16 in. (31 x 18.3 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1962
Accession Number
62.520.333
Tags
Art Historical Context
This stipple engraving presents Louis XVI, titled “Louis Seize Roi des Francais,” as the constitutional monarch of France during the late eighteenth century. Created by an anonymous French artist, the print captures the king at a pivotal moment when royal imagery was shifting from absolute rule toward a more public, representational role. Such portraits circulated widely, helping viewers recognize the monarch whose reign would soon be upended by revolution. The work’s medium—stipple engraving enhanced with hand coloring—reflects popular printmaking practices of the period. Tiny dots create so...
About the Artist
Anonymous, French, 18th century · 1700–1800
The artist known as Anonymous, French, 18th century, represents a collective of unidentified talents active roughly between 1700 and 1800, a period of profound artistic evolution in France from the opulent Rococo to the austere dawn of Neoclassicism and Revolutionary fervor. Little is documented about their personal training or mentors, as their anonymity obscures individual biographies, though th...