Meeting Between Maria De' Medici And Henry IV In Lyon

Thomas Kerrich (Dersingham, 1748 - Cambridge, 1828), by Pieter Paul Rubens

Meeting between Maria de' Medici and Henry IV in Lyon

Oil on canvas lined paper, cm 50,5 x 37,5

Signed and dated 1771 on back

Thomas Kerrich is a leading figure in the cultural landscape of 18th century England: he was a high-profile cleric and directed the library at the University of Cambridge; great connoisseur of art - of his hand are the first monographs of some of the most famous Flemish artists of the Golden Age - he dedicated himself, with excellent results also to drawing - donated, via testamentaria - 48 volumes of his sketches of ancient costumes at the British Museum - and painting.

Kerrich retakes, in this work, one of the most famous compositions within the Rubensian pictorial production: This is one of the 24 canvases that are part of the cycle commissioned by the famous painter from Antwerp by the Queen of France, Marie de Medici for the Palais du Luxembourg. Rubens had to make these paintings within two years, finishing them in time for the wedding of the daughter of Maria de' Medici Enrichetta Maria di Borbone-France with King Charles I of England and achieving one of the highest points in his entire artistic career. The panel represents the mythical apotheosis of the royal couple, before receiving the Christian apotheosis of marriage in Saint Denis: Henry IV and Mary de Medici appear in the clothes of the king and queen of gods, accompanied by the usual wild escort of eagle and peacock. Below, a female figure celebrates their triumph on a chariot pulled by lions. It is Rubens himself in his letter of 29 October 1626 to reassure the scholar Pierre Dupuy on the identification of the character with the allegorical representation of Lyon: the scholar had in fact expressed doubt that it could be the iconography of Cybele.  The philologist’s doubt was however very well founded: Cybele, goddess of fertility, was characterized in the ancient sculpture by the attributes of the turret crown and the lion chariot, both faithfully reproduced by Rubens. It is not to be excluded that the iconography of the Magna Mater may have influenced Rubens in the invention of the personification of Lyon. The depiction of this goddess was in those years very common in wedding occasions both in Florentine environment as in France. For example, the pantomime performed in Florence in 1608 on the occasion of another Medici marriage between Cosimo II de' Medici and Maria Maddalena d'Austria: the show included the opposite entrance of the Chariot of Bellona, pulled by Elefanti, and that of Cibele, drawn by Leoni, and was to end with the triumph of the latter, as a representation of the victory of fertility over war.