MÉDICIS PORTRAITS

Several other pictures by Rubens at the Louvre—all of them portraits—are more or less directly connected with the Médicis series, and were painted between 1621 and 1625. These are the Portrait of Anne of Austria (No. 2112), which was formerly known as Elizabeth of Bourbon; the Portrait of Francesco de’ Medici (No. 2106), Grand Duke of Tuscany, and father of Marie de Médicis, which was painted for the Luxembourg Gallery; the Portrait of Johanna of Austria (No. 2107), daughter of the Emperor Ferdinand, and wife of Francesco de’ Medici; the Portraits of Marie de Médicis (Nos. 2108 and 2109) (the former in the character of Bellona, and both studio works with the final touches added by the master); and the Portrait of Baron Henri de Vicq (No. 2111), who, as Flemish Ambassador to the French Court, was instrumental in procuring Rubens the important commission for the Luxembourg pictures. This admirable portrait was bought at the King of Holland’s sale in 1850 for £637.

To the same period belongs the beautiful Portrait of Susanne Fourment (Rubens’s handsome, large-eyed sister-in-law, whose features are best known from the Chapeau de Paille at the National Gallery), which is still officially catalogued as Portrait of a Lady of the Boonen Family (No. 2114); and the important composition Lot’s Flight from Sodom (No. 2075), which bears the rare full signature and date

PE.-PA.-RUBENS FE, A^o 1625,

to prove the master’s satisfaction with his own handiwork. It is a design of carefully studied rhythm, dramatic expressiveness, and subtly harmonised colour, carried out with the swift sureness of his later work.

In 1627, a year before his mission to Spain on behalf of the Infanta Isabella, widow of the Archduke Albrecht, Rubens designed for his patroness an important series of tapestries, which were, as was his wont at that period, sketched out by him, executed by his assistants, and touched up by his own hand. The tapestries were subsequently presented by the Infanta to a convent at Madrid; some of the paintings for them perished by fire, others were preserved at the Convent of Loeches, near Madrid. Two of these, The Prophet Elijah in the Desert (No. 2076) and The Triumph of Religion (No. 2083), were part of General Sebastiani’s loot from Spain, and were bought by the Louvre for £2400; whilst four others, now at Grosvenor House, were bought by the Marquis of Westminster for £10,500. Of about the same date is the brilliant Adoration of the Magi (No. 2077), with its Titianesque scheme of strong red, blue, and golden yellow, of which a replica is in an Irish private collection.

PLATE XXI.—SIR PETER PAUL RUBENS
(1577–1640)
FLEMISH SCHOOL

No. 2093.—HENRI IV. LEAVES FOR THE WAR WITH GERMANY, AND ENTRUSTS THE GOVERNMENT TO THE QUEEN

(Henri IV. part pour la guerre d’Allemagne et confie à la reine le gouvernement du royaume, 1610)

The King, attended by warriors and holding the banner of France, prepares to leave the country to make war against Germany; he hands the Globe, the emblem of State, to Marie de Médicis; the Queen gives her hand to the little Dauphin, who later became King under the title of Louis xiii.

Painted in oil on canvas.

12 ft. 11 in. × 11 ft. 4 in. (3·94 × 2·95.)