Focus on Portrait of Louis XIV and explore the Genesis.
It seems that Philip V had obtained satisfaction through the intercession of Madame de Maintenon, who in a letter to the Duke of Noailles, dated March 11, 1701 wrote:"I am working to send him the portrait which he has ordered me to make him do. Here are two after-dinners that I return from Saint-Cyr to oblige the King to be painted. Gout came to our rescue. Without it we will not have held him for three or four hours"
The day before, the Marquis de Dangeau left in his journal testimony corroborating the statements of Mme de Maintenon, describing the beginning of the Louis XIV painting, painted in privacy and designed to be embedded later into the final composition:"Thursday 10 [March 1701] at Versailles – The King's gout continues, he was painted after dinner by Rigaud to send his portrait to the King of Spain to whom he promised him  [...]. "The next day, the work actually continued:" Friday 11 at Versailles – The King's gout grew a little, and on leaving the sermon, where he was carried, he was carried back to Madame de Maintenon's, where Rigaud worked on his portrait.."
On September 3, 1703, in a touching letter he wrote to the Marquise, Philip V in turn confessed: "Thank you for the care you took to get me the portrait of the king, I look forward..."
The size and complexity of the composition justified the expectations of the sponsors and the time spent by the artist to complete his work. All the evidence is that Rigaud painted from life while completing the portrait, which never did get sent to Spain.
Thursday, January 19, 1702, Rigaud is seeking a new session, wrote the Marquis de Dangeau: "the King, who had no advice to keep, had the patience to be painted at Madame de Maintenon's by Rigaud; he sends this portrait to the King of Spain, who had urged on".
"The portrait of the King has been exhibited in the great apartment of Versailles; It is full with the royal habit. This work is by M. Rigaud. Never has a portrait been better painted, nor more resembling; The whole court saw it and everyone admired it. A work must be very beautiful and perfect to attract general applause in a place where good taste reigns and where one is not lavish of praise. His Majesty has promised his portrait to the King of Spain, wants to keep his word by giving him the original, and Mr. Rigaud must make a copy that is desired by the entire Court ."
The director of the King's Buildings ordered from the painter's studio a number of copies (in various forms for European courts or provincial royal dispensaries, such as that commissioned by François Stiémart, for example) or engravings, proved by a payment order dated September 16, 1702: "To Sieur Rigaud, ordinary painter of the King, for two large portraits of the King in full, with the sketch in small of the said portraits, as also of the full-length portrait of the King of Spain he made during the current year, 10,000 livres".Pierre Drevet was appointed to carry out the engravings and receives "perfect payment of five thousand livres for the engraving [ sic ] he made of the portrait at the foot of the King Louis XIV, according to M. Rigaud, during 1714–1715."
To do this, Drevet been assisted by a drawing executed by the young Jean-Marc Nattier and to who the director of buildings records payment, on August 20, 1713: "to the Sr Nattier the young, painter, for the drawing of a portrait of the king after Rigaud, which he copied to serve as a model for engraving during 1713, [...] 500 livres"
Drevet owes a great deal to Nattier's work, which has recreated Rigaud's painting to its smallest details, to the projected dimensions of an etching. However, it extended the marble gallery in the background slightly, a variation followed by the engraver. There is no doubt that Rigaud himself supervised Nattier's work, since the drawing was intended for his friend Prevet, and Marc's father, Natier 
Mariette considers the work of Drevet as "what [the artist] has made more considerable" and that she " engraved by order of his very Christian Majesty and Estre put in his Cabinet." In 1733, he noted the rarity in a letter to Gabburri: "For my part I can encourage you to acquire a portrait of the reigning king and the queen, but the one engraved by Drevet is very difficult to have, and I have it Seen for sale at more than eight livres. I can have it for a discreet price but I have to give me time."
Madame de Maintenon Duke of Noailles Saint-Cyr Louis XIV Gabburri Gout Versailles Pierre Drevet Marquis de Dangeau Jean-Marc Nattier Philip V