When it comes to the contemporary conception of luxury, the Western world is forever indebted to Louis XIV, the French monarch who can take credit for elevating lifestyle to a fine art. With his ...

He started wars, bombarded cities ... Meredith Martin and Gillian Weiss, The Sun King at Sea: Maritime Art and Galley Slavery in Louis XIV’s France, Getty Publications, 256pp, 80 colour ...

The painting is part of the collection of the Louvre in Paris where it is on also view; it is a sumptuous portrait of French King Louis XIV by Hyacinthe Rigaud from 1701. Predictably ...

A country house owner is trying to find out how the only known painting of the coronation of the French king Louis XIV end up in his stables. The painting, depicting the 1654 ceremony, had hung in ...

In monetary terms, this was the most important British painting commission of the war ... Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, built by Louis XIV at vast expense, as a demonstration of his own political ...

September 1 marks the 300th anniversary of the death of King Louis XIV, France’s longest-reigning ... As he waged a never-ending series of expensive wars across Europe, the French luxury goods ...

King Louis XIV, a lifelong ballet dancer, would have it no other way. To him, ballet was more than an art. It was the political currency that kept his country together. he was chased out of France ...

During Louis XIV’s reign, dance was central to the lives of the nobility and Louis, himself a keen dancer, ensured that it would develop into an art-form that could be taught, preserved and ...