Marie de' Medici steps from a gilded galley onto a gangway at Marseille while a winged figure blows two trumpets overhead and three naked sea nymphs haul on the mooring ropes below. Peter Paul Rubens painted the canvas between 1622 and 1625 as one of twenty-four on the queen's life for her Luxembourg Palace in Paris. The whole cycle now hangs together in Room 801 of the Louvre's Richelieu wing.
Marie de' Medici stands at the center of the canvas in a silver-white gown embroidered with gold and a tall lace collar, one hand held by an attendant. She has just left the galley at the left. Its gilded stern carries the Medici coat of arms, six balls on a gold shield under a crown, beneath a red awning. A woman in a black and white dress with a feathered hat and a woman in black with a wide ruff stand on either side of her.
A helmeted figure in a blue cloak sown with gold fleurs-de-lis reaches out to the queen from the right. The Louvre's notice identifies this figure as France. Behind, under a white canopy patterned with fleurs-de-lis, a woman raises her arm among a crowd, and the Louvre names this group as the City of Marseille. Above them all a winged woman flies across the sky blowing two trumpets at once. The Louvre calls her Fame, carrying news of the landing to the king.
The bottom third of the canvas is water. Three naked sea nymphs with pearls in their hair pull on ropes to hold the galley against the quay. The Louvre calls them Nereids and describes the passage as much admired. Around them a trident rises at the far left, a grey-haired sea god is seen from behind with one hand raised, a red-faced triton blows a conch shell, and dark sea horses push through the water. The Louvre identifies the god as Neptune and says a memorandum in the Baluze papers names a second figure as probably Proteus.
On the galley's stern deck a man in black armor with a white eight-pointed cross on his chest watches the queen leave. The Louvre's notice does not name him. The canvas is 394 by 295 centimeters, about thirteen feet high, and the narrative canvases of the cycle are all around four meters tall.
Marie de' Medici was born in Florence in 1573 and married Henri IV, king of France. She landed at Marseille on 3 November 1600 on her way to join him, and the Louvre's title for the canvas records the date. The museum describes the picture as a fusion of history and allegory: a real arrival, with the figures of France, Marseille and Fame added to say what it meant.
The cycle tells the queen's life in order, and this canvas comes near its start, after her birth, her education and the presentation of her portrait to the king. An oil sketch for the composition is in Munich, which the Louvre cites in its notice.
Marie de' Medici commissioned the series in 1622, when she had just returned from the exile her son Louis XIII had imposed on her in 1617. She had built the Luxembourg Palace in Paris on the model of the Pitti Palace in her native Florence. She wanted two first-floor galleries painted, one with her own life and one with the life of her late husband.
Rubens agreed to paint the queen's gallery in four years and delivered it in 1625. The Louvre notes that it was finished in time for the festivities for the marriage of her daughter Henrietta Maria to Charles I of England. The museum counts twenty-one narrative canvases about four meters high and three portraits. The gallery for Henri IV was barely begun between 1628 and 1631 and was abandoned when the queen went into exile again in 1631.
The Louvre states that the canvases are entirely by Rubens's own hand, contrary to what is often said. The queen paid late, and the museum records that Rubens settled for ten percent less than the agreed sum, which it gives as 60,000 pounds.
The paintings hung between the windows of the west gallery on the first floor of the palace, which is now the French Senate. They passed by inheritance to the queen's son Gaston d'Orléans and entered the royal collection in 1696. The gallery was open to the public from 1750 to 1779.
The canvases were moved to the Louvre in 1790, went back to the Luxembourg for exhibition from 1802 to 1815, and returned to the Louvre for good in 1816, when they hung in the Grande Galerie. A Rubens room opened at the end of that gallery in 1900 but was too small for the whole series. Since 1993 all twenty-four canvases have hung together in Room 801 of the Richelieu wing, the Galerie Médicis.
The Louvre's list of open galleries for September 2026 marks the Galerie Médicis as closed. Anyone planning a visit should check the museum's current list first.
Close reading
The canvas is four meters high and reads in three bands: the gilded galley and the sky with Fame at the top, the queen and the figures who greet her in the middle, and the sea gods in the water below. Close up, the allegory stays attached to solid things, a coat of arms, a mooring rope, a trident.
1.The Medici arms on the galley's stern
A gold shield with six balls hangs on the carved stern at the top left corner, five red balls and one dark one at the top, under a crown. It is the Medici coat of arms, and it identifies the galley as the queen's. A red awning is stretched from the stern above it.
2.A man in black armor watches from the deck
He stands at the gilded railing in black armor with a white eight-pointed cross across the chest, a long staff in his right hand, watching the queen step off. A bald man in a red garment leans on the rail beside him. The Louvre's notice does not name either of them.
3.Fame blows two trumpets at once
A winged woman in pale yellow drapery flies across the sky above the queen, bare feet trailing, two long trumpets to her lips at once. The Louvre names her as Fame, carrying news of the landing to the king. She is the largest figure in the upper half of the canvas.
4.The queen in silver between two women in black
Marie de' Medici wears a silver-white gown embroidered with gold, a tall lace collar and pearls, and looks to the right. The woman at her left wears a black and white dress and a black hat with a white feather. The woman at her right wears black with a wide ruff. A bearded man in a ruff stands behind. The Louvre's notice does not name the attendants.
5.France reaches out in a cloak of fleurs-de-lis
A figure in a gold-crested helmet and a blue cloak sown with gold fleurs-de-lis bends toward the queen with both arms out. The Louvre identifies this figure as France. Behind, a woman in peach drapery raises an arm and a man at the right edge lifts his hand, under a white canopy patterned with fleurs-de-lis. The Louvre names that group as the City of Marseille.
6.Three Nereids haul on the mooring ropes
Three naked women fill the water under the red cloth that hangs from the gangway. The two on the left, with pearls in their hair, look up and pull on ropes. The third, seen from behind, has looped her rope around a wooden post at the quay. The Louvre calls them Nereids and describes the passage as much admired.
7.A trident, a sea god and a triton blowing a conch
A trident rises at the far left edge. Below it a grey-haired, grey-bearded sea god is seen from behind, one hand raised toward the dark heads of sea horses in the water. A red-faced triton beside him puffs his cheeks into a conch shell. The Louvre identifies the god as Neptune and says a memorandum names a second figure as probably Proteus.
1600
Marie de' Medici lands at Marseille on 3 November, the event the canvas records.
1615–22
The Luxembourg Palace is built in Paris for the queen, with two first-floor galleries meant for painted cycles.
1622
Marie de' Medici commissions the cycle from Peter Paul Rubens after her reconciliation with Louis XIII.
1625
The twenty-four canvases are finished and installed in the west gallery, in time for the wedding festivities of Henrietta Maria and Charles I.
1696
The palace and its gallery enter the royal collection on the death of the duchesse de Guise.
1790
The canvases are moved to the Louvre. They return to the Luxembourg for exhibition from 1802 to 1815.
1816
Definitive transfer to the Louvre, where the series hangs in the Grande Galerie.
1900
A Rubens room opens at the end of the Grande Galerie, too small to hold the whole cycle.
1993
The complete cycle is installed in the Galerie Médicis, Room 801 of the Richelieu wing.
Musée du Louvre, Paris
Rue de Rivoli, 75001 Paris, France
Room 801, Galerie Médicis, Richelieu wing, Level 2. The Louvre's list of open galleries for September 2026 marks the Galerie Médicis as closed. Check the museum's current list before visiting.
Plan your visitAt the Musée du Louvre in Paris, inventory number INV 1774, in Room 801 of the Richelieu wing, the Galerie Médicis, on Level 2. The Louvre's list of open galleries for September 2026 marks that room as closed, so check the museum's current list before travelling to see it.
Marie de' Medici arrives in France to join her husband Henri IV. She steps off a galley bearing the Medici arms at Marseille on 3 November 1600. The Louvre identifies the helmeted figure in the fleur-de-lis cloak who greets her as France, the crowd under the canopy as the City of Marseille, and the trumpeter in the sky as Fame carrying the news to the king.
Sea nymphs. The Louvre calls them Nereids and describes the group as one of the most admired passages in the cycle. They hold the ropes that keep the galley at the quay. Beside them are Neptune with his trident, a triton blowing a conch shell, and a figure the Louvre says is probably Proteus.
394 by 295 centimeters, roughly thirteen feet by nine feet eight inches. The Louvre counts twenty-one narrative canvases in the cycle, each about four meters high, plus three portraits.
Yes, according to the Louvre. The museum states that the canvases of the cycle are entirely by Peter Paul Rubens's own hand, contrary to what is often said. He agreed to finish the whole series in four years and did so between 1622 and 1625. An oil sketch for the composition is in Munich.
The Louvre's notice does not name him. He stands on the stern deck in black armor with a white eight-pointed cross on his chest, watching the queen step onto the gangway.
Displayed at · 1816
The Louvre's collection record places the canvas in Room 801, the Galerie Médicis, in the Richelieu wing, where the whole Marie de' Medici cycle has hung together since 1993. The cycle reached the Louvre from the Luxembourg Palace in 1790 and has been shown there continuously since 1816, first in the Grande Galerie.
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