Henri IV, in gilded armor, leans on a staff and gazes at a small framed portrait of Marie de' Medici that a winged youth holds up for him while a winged child points at the face. Jupiter and Juno watch from a cloud above. Peter Paul Rubens painted the canvas between 1622 and 1625 for the queen's gallery at the Luxembourg Palace, and it hangs with the rest of the cycle at the Louvre.
Henri IV stands at the right in gold-chased armor with a red sash, leaning on a long staff. His bald head and grey beard are turned toward a painting held up in front of him: a portrait of Marie de' Medici with a high lace collar, in a plain black frame. A winged youth with flowers in his hair holds the frame, and a small winged child with red hair points at the face.
A helmeted woman in a blue cloak sown with gold fleurs-de-lis stands behind the king with one hand on his shoulder. The Louvre identifies her as France, advising him wisely. The museum names the youth as Hymen and the child as Cupid, and it notes that the picture within the picture is a real painted portrait of the kind ambassadors carried, in the black frame of the period.
Above them Jupiter, bearded and wrapped in red, sits on a cloud beside Juno in gold, their hands joined. His eagle hangs in the air at the top left corner. Her peacock spreads its tail behind her, and a second peacock perches on a gilded chariot at the right. The Louvre reads the divine couple as the heavenly match for the earthly one, arranging the marriage in advance.
At the bottom two more winged children play with a helmet and a large shield, which the Louvre identifies as the arms of Mars. Behind the king a flat green landscape runs to distant hills, with smoke rising from a town. The canvas is 394 by 295 centimeters, the same size as most of the narrative canvases in the series.
The Louvre's French title says that Henri IV receives the portrait and lets himself be disarmed by Love. The museum reads the picture as a new version of an old theme, the victory of love over force. The king's weapons have passed into the hands of children, and the marriage promises the kingdom a long peace.
The cycle tells the queen's life in order, and this canvas follows her birth and education. The next canvases show her wedding and her landing at Marseille on 3 November 1600. An oil sketch for the composition is in Munich, which the Louvre cites in its notice.
Marie de' Medici, born in Florence in 1573, was the widow of Henri IV and the mother of Louis XIII. She commissioned the series in 1622, when she had just returned from the exile her son had imposed on her in 1617. The paintings were for the west gallery on the first floor of the Luxembourg Palace, which she had built in Paris on the model of the Pitti Palace.
Rubens agreed to paint the whole series in four years and delivered it in 1625. The Louvre counts twenty-one narrative canvases about four meters high and three portraits, and states that they are entirely by his own hand, contrary to what is often said. A second gallery on the life of Henri IV was barely begun between 1628 and 1631 and was abandoned when the queen went into exile again.
The canvases passed to the queen's son Gaston d'Orléans and entered the royal collection in 1696. They 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. Since 1993 the whole cycle has 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. Check the museum's current list before visiting.
Close reading
The picture is built in two registers. Gods sit on clouds in the upper half. The king, his advisers and the children with his weapons occupy the lower half in front of a flat landscape. In close view the portrait at the center is painted as a real object, frame and all.
1.Jupiter and Juno join hands on a cloud
Jupiter, bearded and wrapped in red, sits on a cloud with his hands joined to Juno's. She wears a diadem, a pale bodice and a gold skirt that spills over the cloud's edge. His eagle hangs in the top left corner with beak and talons showing. The Louvre reads the couple as arranging the royal marriage from heaven.
2.Juno's peacocks, one on the chariot
One peacock spreads its tail in a fan of blue eyes behind Juno's shoulder. A second perches on the rim of a gilded chariot lower down, head hanging, tail feathers trailing over the gold. The peacock is Juno's bird, and the chariot is hers too.
3.The portrait is painted as a real picture
Marie de' Medici appears in a lace collar, pearls and a jeweled headdress, inside a plain black frame with a thin gold inner edge. Hands hold it from below and a child's finger points at her face from the side. The Louvre notes that it is painted as a real portrait of the period, of the kind ambassadors carried to a prospective bridegroom.
4.Hymen flies in with flowers in his hair
The youth holding the frame flies in horizontally, naked but for a dark blue cloth at the hips, with flowers in his blond hair and large dark wings behind him. One leg stretches out to the left edge of the canvas. The Louvre names him as Hymen, the god of marriage.
5.The king's face, France at his shoulder
Henri IV is bald with a grey beard, seen in profile, eyes fixed on the portrait. A red-haired winged child, Cupid in the Louvre's reading, leans in beside him and points. Behind the king a woman's face looks out from under a helmet with a tall white and blue plume. The Louvre identifies her as France, advising him.
6.Gold-chased armor, a staff and a sword
The king wears plate armor chased with gold over a red sash and skirt. His right hand rests on a long wooden staff, a sword hilt shows at his hip, and the hand of the helmeted woman in blue rests on his shoulder. The Louvre reads the picture as the victory of love over force, and the king keeps only the weapons he is not using.
7.Children play with a helmet and a shield
Two winged children play at the bottom of the canvas. One crouches over a helmet with a dark blue plume. The other stands beside a large studded oval shield taller than he is. The Louvre identifies the pieces as the arms of Mars, the god of war, out of the king's hands.
8.Smoke rises from a town on the plain
Behind the king a flat green plain runs to blue hills, with trees, water and a town in the middle distance. A plume of grey smoke rises from the town. The Louvre's notice does not identify the place or the fire.
1615–22
The Luxembourg Palace is built in Paris for Marie de' Medici, with two first-floor galleries meant for painted cycles.
1622
The queen 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 of the palace.
1696
The palace and its gallery enter the royal collection.
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.
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 1772, in Room 801 of the Richelieu wing, the Galerie Médicis. 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.
A winged youth with flowers in his hair, whom the Louvre identifies as Hymen, the god of marriage. The small winged child pointing at the picture is Cupid. The Louvre notes that the portrait is painted as a real portrait of the period, with a black frame, of the kind ambassadors brought to a prospective bridegroom.
The Louvre identifies her as France. She wears a helmet and a blue cloak sown with gold fleurs-de-lis, rests a hand on the king's shoulder and, in the museum's words, advises him wisely.
The Louvre reads them as the heavenly couple who answer the earthly couple of Henri IV and Marie de' Medici, arranging the marriage in advance. Jupiter sits in red with his eagle beside him. Juno sits in gold with her peacock spreading its tail behind her.
Playing with a helmet and a shield. The Louvre identifies these as the arms of Mars, the god of war, and reads the whole canvas as the victory of love over force: the king lets himself be disarmed, and the marriage means peace for the kingdom.
394 by 295 centimeters, roughly thirteen feet by nine feet eight inches, the standard size of the narrative canvases in the Marie de' Medici cycle.
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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