Rubens. Princely Portraits

From the 4 October to the 14 January, the Réunion des Musées Nationaux-Grand Palais is organising a monographic exhibition at the Musée du Luxembourg. It focuses on an entirely new subject, the princely portraits made by Rubens throughout his career as a painter and diplomat. Rubens was, probably despite himself, a tremendous court painter. Whilst he initially saw himself as a painter of important historical subjects, he also excelled in ceremonial portraiture, visiting the most splendid courts in Europe. Greatly-prized for his erudition and conversation, he also played an important diplomatic role enjoying an unequalled social position among the artists of his time. Centred around portraits of Philip IV, Louis XIII or furthermore Marie de’ Medici made by Rubens and some of his well-known contemporaries (Pourbus, Champaigne, Velázquez, Van Dyck…), the exhibition plunges the visitor into the palatial atmosphere of the great European courts of the seventeenth century. Dominique Jacquot, head curator at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Strasbourg, has been in charge of organising of this ambitious exhibition.