How does Reception of the Grand Condé at Versailles elucidate its Analysis?
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.
Exposition Universelle of 1855 Escalier des Ambassadeurs