Jacob Christoph Le Blon (German, 1667-1741)
after Nicolas Blakey (Irish, died 1758)
Portrait of Louis XV
INV-3430
Jacob Christoph Le Blon (German, 1667-1741)
after Nicolas Blakey (Irish, died 1758)1739
Portrait of Louis XV
Jacob Christoph Le Blon (German, 1667-1741) after Nicolas Blakey (Irish, died 1758) →mezzotintprint
Date
1739
Medium
Mezzotint with etching, in black, brown, blue, and white, with traces of red ink on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
61.8 × 46 cm (24 3/8 × 18 1/8 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
William McCallin McKee Memorial Collection
Jacques Gautier D’Agoty worked as an apprentice in Jacob Christoph Le Blon’s Paris studio for a few weeks in 1738. After Le Blon’s death, he argued that he had improved Le Blon’s color mezzotint process by adding a fourth plate and opportunistically claimed the exclusive right to use the process, by order of Louis XV. Gautier D’Agoty also insisted that—unlike Le Blon—his prints did not rely on hand retouching or highlighting. This portrait of their mutual patron includes both a black plate and etched white highlighting in the hair. The red pigment applied to the lips has faded, and so determining whether Le Blon’s portrait seems closer to a waxed figure than Gautier D'Agoty’s anatomy studies is for the viewer to judge.