Provost and Municipal Magistrates of Paris

By the end of the 1680s Largilli�re received regular orders from the richer bourgeois of Paris. In 1689 he received a new type of commission, for one of the portrait-groups which the City of Paris caused to be executed to commemorate certain solemn occasions. In this case the theme was the banquet given by the �chevins to the King when he made his first formal visit to the H�tel de Ville, as a gesture of forgiveness to the city for their part in the Fronde. The painting was destroyed at the Revolution, but is known from several sketches. The present canvas in the Hermitage is a preparatory sketch for the huge painting, now lost.

The sketch shows the �chevins seated in front of a table deliberating on the statue of the King to be erected at the H�tel de Ville to celebrate their pardon. In the middle of the table is a bust of Louis, and on the wall behind hangs a vast canvas of the banquet itself. The whole is a Baroque version of the Dutch corporation group, with the naturalism and psychological insight of the latter abandoned in favour of freedom in gesture and movement and dramatic effect in grouping.