In February 1622 Rubens won the prestigious commission of painting twenty-four scenes of the life and ‘heroic deeds’ of the Dowager Queen of the King of France, Henry IV. Marie de’ Medici was the twenty-five-year-old daughter of the Medici grand duke of Tuscany and they were married after Henry IV divorced the childless Marguerite de Valois in the hope of a more fruitful, as well as prosperous second marriage. Due to her mostly mundane career at the French court, Rubens had to depend on his most creative powers of invention in order to complete the commission.
The following plate is the fourth scene in the cycle, where Henry IV is first presented the portrait of Marie. As the betrothed couple had not met previous to their wedding, Rubens staged their initial meeting through this poetic scene. Henry receives the portrait of his future bride, accompanied by Hymen, the god of marriage, and Cupid, the god of love, who directs the King’s gaze to a portrait of Marie. The personification of France, known as Gallia, is represented in a plumed helmet and is adorned with a fleurs-de-lis, as she gently encourages the king. Gathered in the clouds above, the Olympian couple Jupiter and Juno look approvingly down on the scene, their hands joined in a symbol of concord. The scene is, of course, entirely fictitious, though it clearly demonstrates Rubens’ deft skill in flattering his wealthy and noble patrons and his competent ease in carrying out grand and challenging commissions.
After negotiating the terms of the contract, the project was to be completed within two years, coinciding with the marriage of Marie’s daughter, Henrietta Maria. Twenty-one of the paintings depict Marie’s own struggles and triumphs in life. The remaining three are portraits of herself and her parents. The paintings now hang in the Paris’ Louvre in the Richelieu wing. To execute such a large scale cycle in so short a time required the full employment of Rubens’ studio, though the final surfaces indicate Rubens’ brushwork. Amusingly, the artist’s greatest difficulty was getting paid for the commission and he later wrote that the whole project had been the most unprofitable commission throughout his career. Nevertheless, the prolific and masterful quality of the completed cycle evinces the raw genius and logistical brilliance of the master.