Louis XV as a Young Man (1710-1774)

The Museum of Fine Arts Boston holds this pastel of Louis XV as a Young Man, catalogued with a year of 1800 that is clearly erroneous — Carriera's famous pastel of the boy-king was made in 1720 during her Paris visit, and she died in 1757. The Boston date likely records an acquisition or catalogue date rather than an execution date. This work may be a variant of or related to the Dresden Louis XV pastel, or it may be a copy after the Dresden original made for collectors who wanted versions of the celebrated royal image. Louis XV's image was widely reproduced and circulated throughout the eighteenth century, and copies of Carriera's celebrated portrait would have been desirable. The Boston provenance suggests this version followed the trans-Atlantic path of so many European Old Master works acquired by American institutions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Copies after Carriera's most famous portraits, including the Louis XV, were made in her own studio and by later imitators. Distinguishing autograph works from studio replicas in pastel is technically demanding because the blending technique can be learned and imitated more readily than the individual touch of oil painting.