Louis XVI, roi de France et de Navarre (1754-1793), revêtu du grand costume royal en 1779

Louis XVI, roi de France et de Navarre (1754-1793), revêtu du grand costume royal en 1779 [ Louis XVI, King of France and Navarre (1754-1793), wearing his grand royal costume in 1779]  in the Apollo salon in the Palace of Versailles] .  Hand- colored engraving  by Charles-Clement Bervic done after the painting by  the King’s official portraitist Antoine-Francois Callet published in 1790 depicting Louis XVI in a full length portrait wearing his grand state robes.  This engraving was given to President Washington by the French ambassador Jen-Baptiste Tenant in 1791. Washington hung this portrait in his New Room at Mount Vernon when he returned there in 1797. In 1793 when the King was overthrown and consequently executed  Bervic  cut his engraved copper printing plate in half . After the bourbon restoration in 1814 he  soldered it back together.  The later edition is distinguished by a stark white line running through the middle of the print.

Bervic (1756–1822) was a talented and influential engraver who was elected to the French Royal Academy and the Institut de France, as well as to many other European art academies. He worked only with the burin, an engraver’s tool, to cut the lines of the image into the surface of the copper plate.

This portrait of King XVI is a hand- colored engraving and  is in overall  good condition with some creasing and one small bare spot on the lower left section, . Would show very well framed.