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Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne was Louis XV's favourite portrait sculptor. He ordered the artist to portray him in busts regularly, which Lemoyne did, until the king's death in 1774. Six busts is listed in contemporary records but only two examples in marble are known today, one in a private collection, signed and dated 1749, and the other in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, also signed and dated 1757. In both, Louis projects authority and wears the trappings of power - armor, a cordon with the Order of the Golden Fleece, and the medal of the Order of the Holy Spirit pinned to his cloak.
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