Terms and conditions of use
Louis XIII of France
(1622)
Medium
oil on paper on wood panel
Measurements
42.8 × 32.5 cm
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Everard Studley Miller Bequest, 1959
Gallery location
17th Century & Flemish Paintings Gallery
Level 2, NGV International
About this work
In 1622 Rubens travelled to Paris to undertake a series of tapestry designs for Marie de’ Medici, mother of Louis XIII. Louis used the occasion to commission portraits of himself and his wife Anne of Austria. The sittings were fraught with mistrust, with the young king regarding Rubens as a spy working against his chief minister Richelieu. Louis XIII or ‘Louis the Just’ (1601–43) succeeded to the French throne aged eight, after the assassination of his father, Henry IV. This rapidly executed portrait sketch of the young monarch would have served as the model for further images of Louis painted in Rubens’s studio.
Artwork Details
Accession Number
315-5
Department
International Painting
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of Digitisation Champion Ms Carol Grigor through Metal Manufactures Limited
Subjects (general)
Law, Civics and Protest Portraits
Subjects (specific)
black (colour) brown (colour) collars (neckwear) fur garments gaze (psychoanalytical concept) kings (people) Louis XIII, King of France portrait heads
Provenance
Recorded in the estate inventory of the collection of Diego Duarte (d.1682), Antwerp in 1682 collection of A. Harrison, Worcester, by 1955 subsequently in Paris where acquired by F. Rothmann (dealer-collector) in 1955 sold to Edward Speelman (dealer), London, 1955 purchased by Thomas Agnew & Sons, London, 1956 from where acquired under the terms of the Everard Studley Miller Bequest on the advice of A.J.L. McDonnell, 1959.