If you want to see one of Peter Paul Rubens’s beloved paintings in the Marie de’ Medici cycle, head to the Louvre before the fall. After that, these canvases, considered by some to be the high watermark of Rubens’s career, will be off view for four years.
The reason they will leave the public eye for so long is a restoration project that was announced by the Louvre on Tuesday. In its release about the project, the Paris museum called the initiative “the most ambitious restoration in the history of the Department of Paintings.”
Composed of 24 paintings that all hang together in one dedicated gallery, the paintings were commissioned in 1621 by Marie de’ Medici, the queen to France’s Henry IV and a member of the Italian family whose patronage shaped European art history during the time of the Renaissance and the age of Dutch and Flemish Old Masters. The paintings narrate the princess’ life, though in typically Baroque fashion, they are heightened portrayals of real events, replete with flowing fabric and fleshy nudes.
Initially produced for her palace in Luxembourg, the paintings now hang in a room known as the Galérie Medicis. The museum has touted the fact that some 3,100 square feet of painted surface can be found in this one gallery.
While the cycle may lack the same recognition held by the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and other treasures held by the Louvre, these Rubens paintings are some of the key works of their time. But despite their fame, the paintings are currently be exhibited in an “unsatisfactory state,” according to the Louvre, whose 2016 analysis triggered an internal investigation into the works. In 2020, upon further research, experts with the Louvre expressed “grave concern” about the works, the museum said.
“The works are no longer in a suitable state for display,” the museum said. “Specifically, the varnishes have generally yellowed (due to oxidation), and retouching from earlier restorations has become visually discordant—and therefore visible—detracting from the proper appreciation and interpretation of the paintings.”
The Louvre will now remedy this, turning the gallery into what it described as a “restoration studio” where its team can refurbish the works once more.
The total cost of the project was not disclosed, though the museum said that the Society of Friends of the Louvre had contributed $4.64 million. Three curators are spearheading the project: Sébastien Allard, the paintings department’s director; Blaise Ducos, chief curator in charge of 17th- and 18th-century Dutch and Flemish paintings; and Oriane Lavit, a curator in charge of 16th-century French, Flemish, and Dutch paintings.
