During the Restoration, Louis Lafitte (1770-1828) was appointed Dessinateur du Cabinet du Roi, i.e. artist to the French Court under Louis XVIII (1755-1824). He worked very largely with drawings intended to be printed as book illustrations. However, the lithographer Edme Jean Ruhierre signed this print two years after the King’s death. And so it is presumably a kind of memorial tablet. Both text and figures remind us that thousands of ancient Egyptian sculptures and artefacts had arrived in the court of Louis XVIII. This took place in particular during the mid-1820s. These works are now to be found in the Musée du Louvre. The small, winged genius sitting in the foreground of the lithograph is holding a drawing containing an obelisk in one hand. In the surrounding frame we read the four words art, science, trade and agriculture, which are also illustrated by means of figures and appropriate tools. For instance, Mercury, the young man standing with a staff around which two snakes are twined; he stands here in his role of the god of trade.
S.M. LOUIS XVIII / ORDONNE / QUE LA DESCRIPTION / DE L'EGYPTE / SOIT CONTINUÉE / ET / QUE LES ÉDITIONS / EN SOIENT MULTIPLIÉES / Lafitte del. / Architure per Bénauw / E. Ruhierre sc. 1826
