St Vincent de Paul at the Deathbed of Louis XIII

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Artist: Jean-François de Troy (French, 1679–1752)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 321.5 × 280.5 cm
Museum: SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
Rights: Public Domain Mark

The main protagonist of this painting is the man dressed in black in the foreground to the right. The man is Vincent de Paul (1581-1660), who was a priest and founded a charitable organisation. The painting was executed at a time where forces inside the church wished to have the beatification of Vincent de Paul crowned by a true canonisation.

The scene takes place on the deathbed of the French King Louis XIII in the company of a grieving Queen Anna of Austria and the princes Louis (later XIV) and Philippe. The French painter Jean François de Troy was among the artists who supplied paintings for Christiansborg Palace, then the new-built residence of King Christian VI. De Tory supplied two mythological scenes that, like this painting, reflected the official style of painting condoned by the French Art Academy.