Painted in 1701, Rigaud's official portrait of Louis XIV is the canonical image of European absolute monarchy at its rhetorical peak. Louis is dressed in the regalia of the coronation ceremony: the blue velvet robes of the Ordre du Saint-Esprit, lined with ermine and embroidered with golden fleurs-de-lys, draped open at the waist to reveal the elaborate stockings and high-heeled shoes (the king was famously short and used the heels to project height). He holds the scepter; the crown sits on a velvet cushion at his right; the sword of Charlemagne rests below.
The painting was commissioned by Louis XIV at age 63 as a state gift for his grandson Philip V of Spain. The king liked the result so much that he kept the original for himself at Versailles and had a copy made for Spain. The composition combines the public iconography of monarchy (regalia, throne, columns) with the personal projection of a particular monarch (the famous Louis XIV nose, the careful stance, the calf). It established the template for state portraits of European sovereigns through the Napoleonic era.
The painting hangs in the Louvre. Rigaud (1659-1743) was the official court portraitist for the last three Bourbon kings before the French Revolution; he produced dozens of state portraits, but the 1701 Louis XIV is the one that defined the genre. The image is so iconic that 'absolute monarchy' as a visual concept in European cultural memory is heavily anchored on this single painting.
