Moisés Salvo das Águas

In 1701 Louis XIV decided to rebuild the billiard room at Versailles, and the remodelling created a problem. Two paintings by Nicolas Poussin were set into the old panelling and no longer fit the new walls. Rather than lose the subjects, the king commissioned fresh versions in the right dimensions, giving this one, the finding of Moses, to Charles de La Fosse, and a companion to Antoine Coypel. La Fosse painted the pharaoh's daughter lifting the abandoned baby from the reeds of the Nile, and he leaned hard on Venetian painting for the warm colour and the shimmer of the silks. It was made for a room where the ageing king came to play, late in a reign that had already lasted more than 50 years.