Busts of King Louis XIV of France and King Charles I of England

I took these photos from the Wallace collection in London.

These two sculptures have a historical connection - they both seem to have been inspired by the éclat of Bernini.

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Busts of King Louis XIV of France

Bernini.

Very famous sculpture of King Louis XIV of France.

This marble portrait of the French King was created by the French sculptor Antoine Coysevox. This is a latter copy.

He was probably influenced by the Bernini sculpture (created during Bernini’s visit to France in 1666). They were both contemporaries. 

His other famous works are the Louvre (where the original is found) and the Palace of Versailles collections.

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Busts of King Charles I of England

This is an interpretation by Louis-François Roubiliac of King Charles I of England.

He is considered one of the most important sculptors in London of the Rococo style. 

More lifelike, less “powerful” and more light. 

It seems this also had the hand of Bernini because, according to the Wallace Collection:

In 1636 Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the Italian master of Baroque sculpture, made a celebrated bust of Charles I of England. The bust, modelled after portraits painted by Anthony van Dyck, was lost in a fire of the Palace of Whitehall in 1698, but it continued to inspire sculptors long into the eighteenth century.

This bust is a free interpretation of Bernini’s sculpture by Roubiliac, a French sculptor who spent much of his career in England. It was made for George Augustus Selwyn, politician, for his Matson House.