Marie De' Medici and the Continuation of the Medici Family Art Patronage

"The Coronation of Marie de' Medici in Saint-Denis," from the Marie de' Medici cycle, circa 1622–1625, by Peter Paul Rubens. Oil on canvas. Louvre Museum, Paris. Public Domain

Of all the masterpieces in the Louvre, none has a more appropriate home than the 24 paintings glorifying the life and reign of Marie de' Medici, Queen of France.

Painted by Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens, the series known as the “Marie de' Medici Cycle” (1622–1625), are among the greatest artistic achievements of their age. Completed when the Louvre was at the height of its importance as a royal residence, the paintings celebrate the queen mother during the reign of her son King Louis XIII, when France was on the verge of becoming Europe’s greatest power.

For this monumental work of the Baroque era to have been commissioned by a member of the most celebrated family of Renaissance artistic patrons was a similarly appropriate continuation of tradition. Two hundred years earlier, Marie’s ancestor Giovanni de' Medici helped launch the Renaissance through his patronage of Brunelleschi and Donatello. Lorenzo the Magnificent, perhaps the single most important Renaissance patron and the first to patronize Michelangelo, was her great-great-uncle. Her grandfather, Grand Duke Cosimo I, was patron of the eminent art historian Giorgio Vasari and his Academy of the Arts of Drawing. Popes Leo X and Clement VII, two of the most notable papal supporters of the arts, were also members of the Medici family.

Rubens and the Medici

"The Wedding by Proxy of Marie de' Medici to King Henri IV," from the Marie de' Medici cycle, circa 1622–1625, by Peter Paul Rubens. Oil on canvas. Louvre Museum, Paris. Public Domain

Born in Florence in 1575, Marie de’ Medici spent the first 25 years in that longtime center of Renaissance culture. Though its greatest figures were gone, their legacy was alive in the artworks spread throughout the city and in the copies of their writings in her family’s library. From an early age, Marie proved a true successor to that tradition. She was particularly interested in math, philosophy, and science; played the guitar and the lute; and even trained as an amateur artist under Vasari’s successor at the Academy of the Arts of Drawing.

Marie first met Rubens in 1600. At the time, he was a rapidly rising artist who had just been appointed court painter to Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga of Mantua. When the duke visited Florence to attend Marie’s wedding to Henri IV of France, Rubens accompanied him to study the city’s artistic treasures and was inevitably introduced to Medici.

Peter Paul Rubens's self-portrait, 1623. Oil on panel. Royal Collection, United Kingdom. Public Domain

Nine years later, Rubens was hired as a court artist by the ruler of his native Netherlands, Archduke Albert von Habsburg. With both the Holy Roman emperor and the king of Spain also members of the House of Habsburg, Rubens was able to lay the foundations for his future freelance career.

In 1621, Archduke Albert died while Marie de' Medici began planning an artistic project monumental enough to require the talents of her generation’s preeminent painter.

When Tragedy Strikes

"The Apotheosis of Henry IV and the Proclamation of the Regency of Marie de' Medici," from the Marie de' Medici cycle, circa 1622–1625, by Peter Paul Rubens. Oil on canvas. Louvre Museum, Paris. Public Domain

The project was conceived to celebrate the end of the dramatic and often tragic history of the French royal family over the previous decade. In 1610, her husband, King Henri IV, had been assassinated after victory in decades of civil war. Marie then served as regent to their 9-year-old son, King Louis XIII, and ruled France for the next seven years. A fall from power was marked by further tragedy in 1617 when a cabal of nobles persuaded the teenage king to back what he was told would be a bloodless coup against his mother’s advisors—the chief of whom was predictably assassinated.

For two years, Marie was a virtual prisoner until escaping and joining a rebellion to oust the cabal from power. In 1621, the cabal’s leader died and King Louis chose Cardinal Richelieu (formerly Marie’s most talented minister of state) as his own chief adviser, and Marie was appointed to the royal council.

Upon her return to Paris, Marie turned her attention back to completing what she informally referred to as the “Palais Medici”—the Luxembourg Palace. Loosely inspired by Florence’s Palazzo Pitti, the Luxembourg was begun in 1615 in an effort to recreate the architectural grandeur of Marie’s native city. Its construction and furnishing played a major role in the development of Parisian arts.

Originally built between 1615 and 1645 by French architect Salomon de Brosse for the royal residence of the regent Marie de' Medici, the Luxembourg Palace was later refashioned into a legislative building. (DXR/CC BY-SA 3.0)

Marie’s reconciliation with King Louis was the immediate impetus for her decision to commission Rubens to paint the 24-work cycle celebrating her life and family.

‘Marie de' Medici Cycle’

Arranged clockwise in chronological order—originally in a narrow gallery just outside the Luxembourg’s royal apartment—21 of the paintings illustrate Marie’s triumphs, struggles, and lineage.

Rubens Room in the Louvre, 1904, by Louis Béroud. Oil on canvas. Louvre Museum, Paris. Public Domain

Twenty of the paintings contain strong, sometimes dominating, allegorical, and/or symbolic features: “The Meeting of Marie de' Medici and Henri IV” depicts the royal couple among the clouds, in the manner of gods in Greek and Roman mythology. In “The Death of Henri IV and the Proclamation of the Regency” the deceased king undergoes an “apotheosis”—the process by which ancient Roman emperors were said to become deified. “The Coronation at Saint-Denis,” “The Victory at Jülich,” and “The Flight from Blois” are among those depicting Christian angels hovering above Marie, suggesting heavenly approval, guidance, and protection.

Detail from “The Meeting of Marie de' Medici and Henri IV at Lyons” from the Marie de' Medici cycle, circa 1621–1625, by Peter Paul Rubens. Oil on canvas. Louvre Museum, Paris. Public Domain

Of the other four paintings, two only moderately idealize major events from Marie’s life—“The Wedding by Proxy of Marie de' Medici to King Henri IV” and “The Consignment of the Regency.” The remaining two are portraits of her parents, Francesco de Medici and Joanna of Austria.

Passing on the Medici Legacy

A detail of "The Consignment of the Regency," from the Marie de' Medici cycle, circa 1622–1625, by Peter Paul Rubens. Oil on canvas. Louvre Museum, Paris. Public Domain

Marie’s choice of an occasion to publicly reveal the series further celebrated the royal family: the marriage of her daughter Henrietta Maria to King Charles I of England. Little did she know that the court of Charles and Henrietta Maria—at which Marie herself was later to live for three years—would become a cultural center comparable to the Medici’s Renaissance Florence. Under the leadership of the younger monarchs, works by the Italian masters were first imported into England on a major scale. All three greatest geniuses of Florence’s greatest age were represented in the new royal collection. Included within it were paintings by Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael, as well as preparatory drawings for the less mobile creations of Michelangelo.

Building on that tradition, Marie’s son-in-law and daughter commissioned works by Rubens and hired his equally brilliant student Anthony van Dyck as their court’s resident painter—inspiring the first generation of native English painters to meet the high standards of their Italian and Flemish peers. It was a fitting finale to 2 1/2 centuries of Medici patronage.