Marie de Medici (1575-1642), Queen of France c.1600-80
Oil on canvas | 57.2 x 47.0 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 406146
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Marie de’ Medici 1575-1642, daughter of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, married Henry IV of France in 1600 and bore him many children, including Louis XIII (1601-43) and Henrietta Maria (1609-69), Charles I’s Queen. After Henry IV assassination in 1610 she ruled as regent to the young Louis XIII, until he asserted his own authority in 1617 driving her into exile. Though soon reconciled Marie de’ Medici lead a failed coup in 1630 against her son and his favourite, Cardinal Richelieu. This time her exile was more lasting, causing her to visit Brussels in 1631, Amsterdam and London (a guest of her daughter) in 1638. She died in Cologne.
This head and shoulders portrait of the Queen shows her wearing a black velvet dress richly ornamented with pearls, a sapphire and pearl collar, a rope of pearls at her neck and a stiff lace ruff; headdress on her auburn hair in which are also pearls.Provenance
First recorded in the room called 'Paradise' at Hampton Court in 1666 (no 90) measuring 1ft 10in x 1ft 4in (56 x 41cm); in the King's Gallery at Hampton Court in 1688 (no 1010) ‘to the waste, in a ruff and jewels’; it begins to appear in the store at Kensington Palace after 1720 and is described in the King's Gallery at Kensington in 1818 (no 339) as ‘Fred Zucchero, Portrait of Catherine of Medicis, Canvas 1ft 11in x 1ft 6½in (58 x 47cm) Good’.
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Creator(s)
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Medium and techniques
Oil on canvas
Measurements
57.2 x 47.0 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external)
70.9 x 60.0 x 7.7 cm (frame, external)
Alternative title(s)
Catherine de Medici, previously identified as
