Apollo1.0105_Nocret

Apollo1.0105_Nocret

Jean Nocret, Louis XIV as Apollo in "Allegorical Portrait of the Royal Family," mural painting, 1670, Salle de l'Oeil de Boeuf, Chateau de Versailles.

Louis XIV sits as Apollo, with solar sceptre, while his cousin poses as Diana. His wife sits (as Juno) beneath him with their children and a putto.

R. St. Onge, et al., La Civilisation Française en Evolution I (1996): "The Academie decreed that classical themes were desirable if not demanded ... for capturing French ideals." p. 124 This painting delivers those themes. Narrative Gain: Since the painter was expected to depict French nobility through classical iconography, the royal family comes out as gods.
Versailles, the royal extraurban palatial estate, is built and designed to exhibit throughout chateau and grounds the iconographic agenda promoting Louis as The Sun God Apollo.

Remarkable: Louis' wife sits as Juno with her children below the king's elbow. Behind him stands his cousin Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans, la grande Mademoiselle, to whom Louis was at birth destined by dynastic impulse to be wed. She gestures to the actual queen, even if Nocret depicts her in a superior position. Of course in the Olympian Pantheon, Juno is superior to both Apollo and Diana; however, here the regal queen seems considerably less imposing.

From left to right: Queen Henrietta Maria of France (b. 1609) as Amphytrite, Philippe I, Duke of Orléans (b. 1640) as Plutus (?), his daughter Marie Louise (1662) as Psyche, his wife Henrietta Anne Stuart of England (b. 1644) as Venus, the Queen Mother Anne of Austria (b. 1601) as Ariadne exalted, three Orléans daughters of Gaston de France as Graces or Horae; King Louis XIV of France (b. 1638) as Apollo, his children Louis (1661) as Cupid and Marie Thérèse of France, la Petite Madame (b. 1667) as ?, and Philippe Charles (b. 1668) as Cupid, the queen Maria Theresa of Spain (1638) as Juno, and Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans, la grande Mademoiselle and Louis' cousin (b. 1627) as Diana. The infants depicted in a small frame near putti (center bottom) are the children of Louis and Maria Theresa who had died in infancy.