Louis XIV

This assessment asks students to reason about the reliability of the engraving and to think about other information that could help them evaluate its reliability. For Question 1, students must explain that, as a court artist, Benoist may have had incentive to depict the king in a flattering way. For Question 2, students must identify other information that would help them evaluate the reliability of the images and clearly explain why this information would help them. Students might wonder about the relationship between Louis XIV and the court artists, which could shed more light on whether Benoist felt pressure to depict Louis in a particular way. They might also wonder about whether all of the images were created at the same time or whether the images were created across the decades. This would shed light on whether the images of Louis as a child were created decades after his childhood, which may make them less reliable as evidence.