AUVREST (active in Paris around 1780-1820) - Lot 15

AUVREST (active in Paris around 1780-1820) Equestrian portrait of Louis XIV Pen and black ink. Signed lower right: exécuté par Auvrest, rue de Sèvres n°40 43.5 x 32.3 cm ( at sight ) Titled lower center : Louis le Grand Auvrest's biographical data (first name, dates) are unknown, but we place his activity around 1780-1820. The family name, however, originated in Lorraine. In 1863, a drawing dated 1788 of Sully was donated to the Musée Lorrain in Nancy, along with a portrait of Necker, and inventoried as "Auvrest le jeune", which would make our artist the son or brother of another. He drew several portraits of deputies, as early as 1789, Monsieur Claye député du baillage de Chateauneuf en thimerai à l'assemblée nationale en 1789 par son très humble et obeissant serviteur Auvrest et à tous bons citoyens que cette image est chère; Jean François, député d'Agen aux Etats-généraux, and several others, in 1791, or without date. As early as 1795, he was a member of the Société libre d'écriture, de vérification, belles-lettres et arts, as an "artist writer". Is he also one of the signatories of the subscription dated May 30, 1793, launched by members of the Committee of Correspondence, for the "Journal de la Montagne" (June-December 1793)? The earliest drawing we've located appears to be the portrait of Stanislas, King of Poland and Duke of Lorraine, dated 1786 and kept at the Musée Historique Lorrain in Nancy. Should we equate our artist with the one who, in 1783, signed "ancien professeur à l'école accadémique [sic] de Colmar" a drawing entitled La jument du compère Pierre, a copy of an engraving by Nicolas de Larmessin, which itself copies a painting by Nicolas Vleughels (in the Musée de Clermont-Ferrand)? Two other pen-and-ink drawings, one enhanced with watercolor, the other signed "à la plume par Auvrest 1783", copying tavern scenes by Téniers, came to the museum through the same donation, and belong to the same artist, who nevertheless seems to us more clumsy than the author of our drawing. Is it possible that it's someone else (the mysterious "elder"), or that our artist, far from Colmar, has made progress? Should we consider an Auvrest copying rather vulgar genre scenes, or an Auvrest portraitist?