A bronze equestrian group of Louis XIV after Martin Desjardins, the king shown in armour, head to the left, a baton in his right hand and a sword at his left side, the horse with left foreleg raised, mounted on a rectangular ebonised wood plinth with gilt bronze mounts. From 1670 Martin Desjardins, a sculptor of Flemish origin, began to work in Versailles. In 1686 he completed the monumental bronze equestrian statue to Louis XIV for the Place de Victoires in Paris. Its success led to two further commissions, one for the city of Lyon and another for the city of Aix, all of which were destroyed during the French Revolution. This statuette is a reduction based on the equestrian monument erected at the Place Bellecour in Lyon in 1713.