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The Alexander series established Le Brun's position with the King. He obtained every post of importance in art, and supplied designs for all the great decorative schemes in the royal palaces. In these works he was compelled by the nature of the task to be less strictly classical than in his theories, and the same phenomenon appears in the few easel pictures which he produced during the period of his success.
A typical example of his style is the painting of Louis XIV Adoring the Risen Christ, painted for the chapel of the Mercers' Company in 1674, now in the museum of Lyon. The first impression is of a lively Baroque composition, such as Pietro da Cortona might have produced for a Roman church. It is only on careful examination that we notice the other elements. The types are more Raphaelesque and the presentation of the figures is more frontal than would be the case in a contemporary Roman composition. The altarpiece is closer in its general effect to the Baroque artists whom Le Brun condemned than to Poussin, whom he set up as the ideal model.
In the bottom right-hand corner of this painting we see the figure of Colbert, modestly placed and realistically painted, which reminds us of the fact that Le Brun was also a portrait painter of distinction.
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