(Paris 1635–1701 Rome) Presumable portrait of the young Philippe de France, the Duc d’Anjou and later King Philip V of Spain, as an antique imperator, oil on canvas, 60.2 x 46.5 cm, framed

In terms of style, this portrait can be assigned to a whole group of similar children’s portraits by Gascars, who advanced to become a court painter in Versailles after he was appointed member of the Academy in 1680. In the years preceding his appointment, Gascars, who probably numbers among the most international European portraitists of the grand siècle, had made an international career. Having been educated in Paris, Rome, and Amsterdam, he travelled to London, where several sources mention him as a French agent. Thanks to the popularity of his portraits, he had been granted access to the court of Charles II, where he portrayed several members of the royal family. Our painting is closely related to the portraits of the young Duchess of Somerset and Lady Barbara Fitzroy (the king’s daughters), which date from the same period and show the artist’s dependence on Willem Wissing on the one hand and the French tradition of Mignard’s school on the other. In 1678 he witnessed the Peace of Nijmwegen in the Netherlands, which he captured in a large-format painting that earned him the recognition of the French court, for which he executed numerous commissions when he returned to Paris in 1680. Meanwhile, he enjoyed an international reputation as a portraitist; in 1681 he travelled to Modena, to the D’Este court, and in 1686 he stayed in Venice to portray the Polish king Jan Sobieski and his family. Since this monumental painting is stylistically closely related to our portrait, the latter could have been executed after his return from Warsaw. Both the portrait’s princely iconography and the boy’s characteristic physiognomy speak in favour of the sitter’s traditional identification. The work must be dated around 1690, when the prince was about five or six years old. Because of his claims to the throne, which are also indicated in this allegorical portrait, Europe was forced to engage in the so-called War of the Spanish Succession. However, the reforms carried out by the later monarch and founder of the Bourbon line in Spain turned out to be extremely beneficial for the former world power, which after the reign of Charles II, called “The Hexed” – a merciful paraphrase of his physical and mental state –, was lying in agony.