.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Van der Meulen began his training under the Belgian court painter Pieter Snayers and he joined the painter's guild in his native city of Brussels in 1651. Soon his fame as a genre and history painter spread abroad and in 1662 he was called to Paris to fill the post of battle painter to King Louis XIV of France.
During the campaigns in Flanders in 1667, the King was so delighted by van der Meulen's pictures that the artist was ordered to accompany Louis in all his expeditions to immortalise his military successes. In 1673 he was received into the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, attained the grade of Councillor in 1681, and died full of honors in Paris in 1690.
The present lot can be compared to the picture in the Musée National du Château, Versailles, which shows the arrival of Louis XIV at the old château, from the same perspective (see Emmanuel Starcky et al, A la gloire du Roi. Van der Meulen, peintre des conquêtes de Louis XIV, 1998, p. 105, no. 17).
During the campaigns in Flanders in 1667, the King was so delighted by van der Meulen's pictures that the artist was ordered to accompany Louis in all his expeditions to immortalise his military successes. In 1673 he was received into the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, attained the grade of Councillor in 1681, and died full of honors in Paris in 1690.
The present lot can be compared to the picture in the Musée National du Château, Versailles, which shows the arrival of Louis XIV at the old château, from the same perspective (see Emmanuel Starcky et al, A la gloire du Roi. Van der Meulen, peintre des conquêtes de Louis XIV, 1998, p. 105, no. 17).