In Jean-Antoine Watteau's The Signboard of Gersaint, a portrait
of LouisXIV is being placed in a storage box because Louis had recently had
died.
Normally, the painting is interpreted as a
commentary on the shift in aristocratic culture – or relief – that occurred
during the government of the more licentious Régent Philippe II, Duke of Orléans (1715–1723), after the death of Louis
XIV and before the accession to the throne of Louis
XV.
