Portrait of King Louis XIII of France
Details
- Author / creator
- Frans Pourbus (Flemish, 1569–1622)
- Object type
- Painting
- Date or period
- 1611
- Dimensions summary
- Framed: 186.7 × 122.4 × 6.3 cm; Unframed: 159.3 × 95.3 cm
- Support
- Canvas
- Paint medium
- Oil
- Place of origin
- Flanders
- Acquisition method
- Purchase
- Credit line
- Purchased with the Founder's Endowment, 2003
About this object
Although ten-year-old Louis XIII was king of France, his mother Marie de’ Medici remained in power until the boy officially came of age. Pourbus inscribed the sitter’s age and the painting’s year in the composition: “The holy year 1611 at his age of 10 years.” Marie de’ Medici commissioned this work as she negotiated marriages for her two children to Philip III of Spain and Mary Marguerite of Austria, alliances that led to the European domination of the next two centuries by the Bourbon and Habsburg families.
Materials and technique
Oil on canvas
Signature and marks
Signed with the monogram lower right: F.P. FACIEBAT. Inscribed middle right: AN° SAL. 1611. AETA'. SVAE. A°. 10. Inscribed with inventory number lower left 783. Inscribed on the reverse, on a hand written label: brought back from Rome by J. W. Brigstocke of Carmarthen.
