It is said that Louis XIV. preferred the pictures of his own court-painter, Charles Le Brun, to those of the Venetian master, Paolo Veronese, whose large canvas, _The Supper at Emmaus_ (No. 1196), was nevertheless acquired during his reign. Eight pictures by Annibale Carracci, all of which are not now publicly exhibited in the Louvre (Nos. 1218, 1220, 1222, 1226, 1231-34), Albani’s _Diana and Actæon_ (No. 1111), nine compositions by Guido Reni (Nos. 1439-55 and 1457), and ten paintings by Domenichino (Nos. 1609-10 and 1612-19), also enriched the royal collection during Louis XIV.’s reign. Nor were the great French painters neglected. The four pictures (Nos. 736-39) of _The Seasons_, by Nicolas Poussin, which had been commissioned in 1660 by the Duc de Richelieu for the decoration of the Château de Meudon, together with four of the largest Claudes now in the Louvre (Nos. 312, 314, 316, 317), were obtained for the royal galleries by the ever-watchful Colbert (1619-83), who had been appointed Minister of Finance on the death of Mazarin (1602-61). Flemish art, as seen in the stately pictures of Van Dyck, was represented by seven examples (Nos. 1961-63, 1970, 1973-75). On the other hand, Louis XIV. is said to have failed altogether to appreciate the work of Teniers and to have exclaimed, when some of that artist’s pictures were brought to his notice, “_Ôtez-moi ces magots-là!_” Only one of the thirty-nine pictures by Teniers now in the Louvre, the _Interior of a Cottage_ (No. 2162), passed into the Gallery at that date. The almost entire absence of Dutch pictures is also to be noticed. An event of extreme importance in this pompous reign was the institution of the French Academy of Arts, in 1648, with Charles Le Brun (1619-90) as Director, the despotic power which he exercised in art matters bringing about his further appointment as Director of the Gobelins tapestry works in 1660. In 1681 the Crown pictures and other royal art treasures were brought to the Louvre from Versailles and were temporarily exhibited there, the king paying a state visit to the capital on December 5 to see his _cabinet de tableaux_. We read that the walls of eleven rooms were covered up to the cornices. The collection, putting on one side all doubts as to strict authenticity, included six paintings by Correggio, ten by Leonardo da Vinci, eight by Giorgione, twenty-three by Titian, nineteen by A. Carracci, twelve by Guido Reno, and eighteen by Paolo Veronese. These treasures, however, did not remain long at the Louvre, but were “packed up, loaded on rough carts, and taken back over the paved roads to Versailles,” which had now taken precedence over Fontainebleau as a royal residence; and at Versailles the Court mainly resided until the Revolution, although Louis XIV. greatly enlarged the Louvre Palace and planted the Tuileries Gardens. At the death of _le Roi Soleil_ the Crown pictures numbered 1500.