Reception of the Grand Condé at Versailles
It represents the reception of Louis II de Bourbon-Condé by Louis XIV, at the Palace of Versailles, at the foot of the Escalier des Ambassadeurs [fr], in 1674.Following the mixed success of another of his paintings, Siècle d'Auguste : naissance de N. S. Jésus Christ (Exposition Universelle of 1855), Gérôme chose to focus on “small” history.In this painting he highlighted the comedy of power, through the belated allegiance of the prince to his king.The taste for reconstruction and the painter's precision are found in the representation of the rich court costumes, and in the reproduction of the monumental Escalier des Ambassadeurs de Versailles, destroyed more than a century earlier.[2] In 2014, the painting was loaned to the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon as part of the exhibition L'invention du Passé.