Charles X, King of France

François Gérard's portrait of Charles X, executed in 1824 at the beginning of his reign, depicts the most conservative of Louis XVI's brothers ascending the throne with full ceremony. Charles was sixty-six at his coronation, already representing the ancien régime's unreformed values in a France that had experienced revolution, imperial transformation, and constitutional monarchy. Gérard presented him with royal dignity appropriate to a king determined to reassert divine-right principles, his reign ending in the 1830 revolution that he had made inevitable by his political inflexibility.

Gérard follows the conventions of royal portraiture with the king in coronation robes and regalia. His polished, elegant style renders the elaborate costume with meticulous precision against a formal palace setting.