Acquired by the Musée du Grand Siècle 

This important terracotta by Martin Desjardins represents a significant rediscovery, returning to public view after more than fifty years. Already known to scholars, it was exhibited in two major exhibitions devoted to late seventeenth-century sculpture and decorative arts: Louis XIV: faste et décors, held at the Musée du Louvre in Paris in 1960, and Grupello und seine Zeit, presented at the Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf in 1971. It had not been publicly shown since.

Representing Charlemagne, the statuette was conceived as a model for the sculpture intended for the right-hand niche of the façade of the Church of Les Invalides in Paris, one of the most prestigious sculptural programmes of Louis XIV's reign. Desjardins's death in 1694 prevented him from executing the final statue, which was entrusted to Antoine Coysevox in 1706 as the counterpart to Nicolas Coustou's Saint Louis.

The work was acquired by the Département des Hauts-de-Seine for the permanent collections of the newly established Musée du Grand Siècle. Developed around the major donation of Professor Pierre Rosenberg, Honorary President-Director of the Musée du Louvre, the museum is dedicated to the art and civilisation of seventeenth-century France. This acquisition restores a rare and important model to a central place in the history of French Baroque sculpture.