Francesco Solimena, 'An Allegory of Louis XIV', about 1700

This oil sketch has long been associated with a finished painting known as the Allegory of Louis XIV, King of France (State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg). The two share many key elements to do with their figures and mythology, though the St Petersburg painting is much more polished in its execution.

Minerva, goddess of wisdom and warfare, is depicted in both paintings. In this sketch, she is seated at the left on the back of a lion, whose snarl is tamed by the pacifying gesture of her hand. She wears a helmet topped with her symbol of a golden owl and points with a commanding gesture to a shield held up by putti. Next to Minerva is an aged, bearded man – he is a personification of Time, identifiable by the scythe and hourglass lying beside him. He bends forward under the weight of a book on his back, in which the winged figure of Fame (or History) is about to write.

The key difference between the two paintings lies in the shield to which Minerva points. In the St Petersburg picture, the shield has been filled with an inscription and a portrait likeness. Today it shows the portrait of Empress Catherine the Great, but it was originally painted in honour of the French king Louis XIV, who was presented with the finished picture by Cardinal Gualtieri, the pope’s representative in France. Louis' likeness was covered by Catherine’s when the painting was taken from Paris to Russia in the eighteenth century. In the National Gallery’s painting, the shield bears neither a portrait nor an inscription.

Both paintings are allegories, and the person whose likeness appeared in the shield would be associated with the qualities of the figures in the painting: filled with Minerva’s wisdom, they would merit a place in the history books. An allegory like this was highly adaptable, and several variations on the Hermitage composition exist (not all of them are by Solimena himself).

The sketch was once thought to be an oil study for the St Petersburg painting, but it is more likely that it acted as a ricordo – a record of Solimena’s composition that he kept in his studio, which could be shown to prospective patrons who could fill in the shield as they saw fit.