It is unlikely that there is any genuine portrait of Louis-Charles "from life" in the Temple prison. As Marguerite Jallut noted, many artists later found it to their advantage to claim that that they had penetrated the Temple: "In reality no-one came, no-one was allowed to enter except the municipal commissioners, the administrators and those who accompanied them..."(p.261). The only securely documented exception is Kucharski, who is thought to have gained entry with visiting officials, in early 1793. Shortly afterwards there was a tightening of security. An order of the General Council of the Commune, dated 1st April 1793, forbade all guards or "any others" from making drawings (no doubt in particular floorplans of the prison); those caught in contravention of this order were to be subject to immediate arrest. Louis-Charles himself was increasingly isolated. On 3rd July 1793, he was removed from his mother and placed under the surveillance of Antoine Simon and his wife. After 16th October 1793 he was no longer allowed to exercise in the prison garden but confined to the tower. Following Simon's removal in January 1794, he was almost literally walled up alive. He was found by Barras on 10th Thermidor in a darkened room, surrounded by his own excrement. In the final year of his life, under the care of Laurent, Gomin, then Lasne, his treatment improved, but there were still no unauthorised visitors. It is possible that the architect Bélanger, one of the commissaries of the Commune, made a brief sketch but, if so, this portrait has never been securely identified.
A portrait by Jean-Marie Vien le jeune
This striking portrait in the Carnavalet, by Jean-Marie Vien, is probably the strongest candidate for an authentic image from life. An inscription on the frame, clearly later in date, read(s): "Portrait of Louis XVII, painted in the Temple prison in 1793 on the order of the Convention by Vien (fils) 1735-1806". (Laurentie, Louis XVII, vol. 1, p.555).
Unfortunately there is no supporting evidence that any such commission was ever made.
Musée Carnavalet,
Louis XVII in the Temple prison in 1793
Joseph-Marie Vien, the younger (1760-1848)
Oil on canvas, 60cm x 48cm
Signed and dated "Vien fils, 1793"
Acquired by the Carnavalet in 1922, in a "public sale"
https://www.photo.rmn.fr/archive/03-009367-2C6NU045HYPU.html
Laurentie situates the picture in the mid-1793:
It is without doubt at this date (Summer 1793) that one should place the famous portrait by Vien fils. In truth, this portrait does not offer a very reliable likeness, but it can serves to bear witness.(Laurentie, Louis XVII, vol. 1, p.40).
From now on, the little boy, who was always threatened by lack of air and vulnerable to rickets, saw his limbs grow long and his chest congested. At the time that he was taken from his mother (July 1793), Viens fils, the miniaturist, shows him well-dressed but already narrow-chested and stooping. (L'Iconographie, p 23)
There is little information about provenance, other than that the Carnavalet acquired it in a "public sale" in 1922. In 1910-11 the picture was temporarily in the possession of the journalist Henri Rochefort, who used it to try to discredit the pretender Naundorff:
I have recently been brought a picture that I first saw almost a quarter of a century ago, when the proprietor asked a price which would have put off even the most ardent royalist. It is a portrait of Louis XVII, painted in the Temple by order of the Committee of Public Safety, by Vien, signed and dated 1793.
In Rochefort's view the picture contradicted the claim that Naundorff, with his supposed "Bourbon nose", bore any resemblance to Louis XVII:
The portrait of the true Dauphin, executed in the Temple only two years before his death, shows an infant who is frail, bloodless, evidently anaemic. His nose is not at all aquiline and does not resemble that of his father. To judge by his complexion and hair-colour, he rather resembles the "Austrian type" of Marie-Antoinette. The Committee of Public Safety, apprehensive about the health of the little prisoner, had exceptionally authorised the artist into the Temple, which was closed to all, in order to make a portrait and prove to the public that the child was still alive.
The sad little victim, aged almost eight-and-a-half...wears a tight grey costume. His hair, blond to red, covers his forehead almost down to his eyebrows; his pale lips and flickering eyes, reveal that the future inheritor of the throne is already touched by death....
Henri Rochefort, in La Patrie, 12 November 1910.
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k20476081.item
Laurentie doubted that there was ever a formal order for the painting from the Committees. In 1910 Rochefort had appealed for documentation, presumably without success:
Portrait of Louis XVII by Vien.
Can anyone provide information on the work containing the order by the Commune or the Committee of Public Safety, to the painter Vien fils to go to the Temple in 1793 and make a portrait of Louis XVII?
Rochefort in L'Intermédiaire des chercheurs & curieux, 1910 (p.787).
Portraits which show Louis-Charles after July 1793(?)
Laurentie followed his discussion of the Vien canvas with notes on several pictures which purport to show Louis-Charles at a later point in his incarceration. He even attempted to establish a narrative sequence which illustrated the child's progressive deterioration in health. It seems pretty unlikely that any of these portraits are in fact genuine or, at least, dated correctly.
Sketch "by David"As the section on the Musée Louis XVII shows, there are a number of highly disparate images attributed to David.
It is know that the artist was present on 8th October 1793 during the second day of Louis-Charles's interrogation before the trial of Marie-Antoinette. However, there is no evidence that he made a portrait at this session, let alone that one can be securely identified.
The most interesting of the "David" pictures is this one, which belonged to Alcide Beauchesne. [Laurentie, Louis XVII, plate 116]. It is one of several portraits which shows Louis-Charles with light coloured short hair.
Le peintre David, Musée Louis XVII
http://musee.louis.xvii.online.fr/david.htm
See also the comments of Laure de la Chapelle, Carnets Louis XVII, 2006.
https://www.cercle-louisxvii.com/wp-content/themes/CEHQ-LXVII/pdf/comptes-rendus/cr_2006-10-14_6d90d85cbf936b.pdf p.9
Laurentie, Louis XVII, Plate .108. L'Iconographie, p.23:
(44cm x 30cm).
Blue eyes, reddish blond hair; brown jacket with blue buttons, white cuffs and colour. Summer 1793(?)
The work belonged to Georges de Manteyer.
For Laurentie, Louis-Charles is particularly identified by his unusually shaped ear. Again he has a small, rounded head and short hair.
There is actually quite a lot of information available about Louis-Charles's hair in the Temple. Until January 1793 his personal grooming was in the care of the King's personal valet Cléry. Madame Simon is subsequently recorded as having cut his hair. From September 1794 to January 1795 a perruquier called Danjout came to the Temple to administer to the child. This seems the most likely period when Louis-Charles would be remembered as having neat short hair.
Drawing in charcoal by "LAVIT, soldier of the National Guard" Louis XVII, Plate no.112.
http://musee.louis.xvii.online.fr/lavit.htm
The picture belonged to the comtesse de Reiset.
According to Laurentie, the sketch shows Louis-Charles "drowning in grease and dirt" (Iconographie, p.23)
The artist is usually identified as Jean-Baptiste-Omer Lavit, (1771-1836), a pupil of David and later Professor of Perspective at the École des Beaux-Arts.
This drawing still exists today in a private collection. Laure de la Chapelle, of the Cercle Louis XVII, solicited an expert opinion. The paper was found to be genuinely late 18th-century, though the verse shown in Laurentie's reproduction is a 19th-century addition. Speculatively (very!), the length of hair and absence of a fringe suggests a date when Louis-Charles was in the care of his mother after the departure of Cléry in January 1793.
Before October 1793 child could theoretically have been glimpsed walking in the garden of the Temple by one of the guards; however,there is no record of a "Lavit" among their number.
Sepia by MorièsLouis XVII, Plate 118.
(25cm x 20cm)
The inscription reads "Portrait of Louis XVII, done in prison by Moriès, pupil of David."
This drawing too belonged to Georges de Manteyer.
Not a lot is known about Moriès (? possibly not even his full name) He was a pupil of David in 1793/94 and died in Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1812. According to Delécluze, "This likeable and excellent man has not left a single work to consecrate his memory".
There is nothing about this picture which really suggests it could be authentic - Laurentie, however, saw in it the Louis-Charles of 1794: "A sepia by Moriez...shows the child of nine that Barras refound on 10 Thermidor....We see a hunted beast. Louis XVII is bent, fleshless, with burning cheeks, great sunken eyes, wild, frightened, his hair stuck down with dirt and sores."(Iconographie p.25).
The Portrait by Bellanger
The architect François-Joseph Bélanger (Bellanger) claimed to have met and sketched the child shortly before his death, on 31st May 1795. This picture can no longer be traced. Bélanger's account, given long after the event, has not generally been considered reliable:
Simien-Despréaux an author of the Restoration, wrote down the so-called Bellanger declaration, and read it to the man. But the latter did not sign it; this happened in October 1817 when Bellanger was 73. Although he was undoubtedly there, and attended the Dauphin's meal, his account is inaccurate in a number of respects. Whereas the majority of witnesses referred to the prisoner as silent during the months that preceded his death, Bellanger recounts that the boy was the first to speak and greeted him as a visitor. To Simien-Despréaux who wrote his statement, he claimed to have recognised him well. He declared that his "habits at Versailles" had given him many occasions to see him frequently. The "sound of his voice....his beautiful eyes and the blond colour of his hair" were indeed those of the little boy that he had "often seen a few years before his imprisonment".
Henri G. Francq, The unsolved mystery: Louis XVII, Leyden, Brill 1970, p.80
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=L9AUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA80#v=onepage&q&f=false
Interestingly the pretender Eleazar Williams later echoed the story, claiming that he had been taken to America by an unknown priest and a "Jacobin" painter called "Bélenger". He recounted that Bélenger had sketched him in the Temple and also knew about the bust by Beaumont based on the portrait. See Taws, "The dauphin and his doubles", p.26.
Portraits by Greuze?
Like David, Greuze is a catch-all attribution; see the collection of images on the Musée Louis XVII site:
http://musee.louis.xvii.online.fr/greuze.htm
Laurentie's considered that this portrait, which was in his own collection, represented the final depiction of Louis-Charles. It had apparently belonged to Madame de Tourzel.
Louis XVII, Plate 128, Iconographie, p.25
It is difficult to believe that this image, showing Louis-Charles with side parting and braces, can possibly be accurate; it looks German.
Here is another, more recent candidate, for a late portrait by Greuze:
This striking picture, hitherto uncatalogued, was auctioned in Paris on 11th October 1981. The sale notice reads:
Presumed portrait of the dauphin Louis XVII, attributed to Greuze. An inscription glued to the back is clearly legible and gives the following details: "Portrait of the dauphin Louis XVII at the age of ten years old". Oil on canvas, attributed to Greuze, not signed; with the arms of the royal family of France at the top and on the right. Provenance: sale by Sotheby's at Mentmore Towers (Buckinghamshire) in 1977 of the collection of Lord Rosberry; previously sold by the baron Mayer de Rothschild.[catalogue entitled"Chrysanthemum"] Labels on the back of the picture read "Tennant Heirlooms 1907"and "1945", whilst a third gives the address of Sotheby's in New Bond Street.
Émile Mouray,"Louis xvii, le portrait oublié", AgoraVox, article of 03.04.2007.
https://mobile.agoravox.fr/culture-loisirs/culture/article/louis-xvii-le-portrait-oublie-21723
It must be said that this is a beautiful and disconcerting image but, once again, sadly there is no real means of verifying the authorship or date.
References
Musée Louis XVII Michel Jaboulay
http://musee.louis.xvii.online.fr/index.htm
Laurentie, L'iconographie de Louis XVII... (1913)
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5699139x/f13.item
"Les portraits de Louis XVII, prisonnier au Temple", Forum de Marie-Antoinette
https://marie-antoinette.forumactif.org/t1514-les-portraits-de-louis-xvii-prisonnier-au-temple
On later iconography:
"Heurs et maleurs de Louis XVII, arrêt sur images", exhibition at the Musée de la Révolution francaise, Vizille, 29 June-1st October 2018.
https://musees.isere.fr/sites/portail-musee-fr/files/docs/dvi_-_dossier_de_presse_louis_xvii.pdf
Richard Taws, "The Dauphin and his doubles: visualizing royal imposture after the French Revolution", The Art Bulletin, March 2016, vol.98(1), p.72-100 [on JStor]
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