AN121 Marie de Medicis: Queen of Spin

  • 12 Nov 2015
  • 1:30 PM - 3:00 PM
  • Musee du Louvre, Rubens Medicis Gallery
  • 5

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  • Marie de Medicis: Queen of Spin
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Thursday, 12 November 2015                                       

1:30 pm to 3:00 pm

Cost: €20 plus museum fee

This on-site talk focuses on Marie de Medicis and her “story” as illustrated in the cycle of paintings she commissioned, now hanging in the Rubens Medicis Gallery at the Musée du Louvre.  See what instructor, art historian Colette Juilliard, says below:

Marie de Medicis:  Queen of Spin

Marie de Medicis, Queen of France in the 17th century, widow of Henri IV and mother of King Louis XIII, isn't as famous as Marie-Antoinette.  But in contrast to our beheaded queen, she was well ahead of her time:  You think we invented the concept of communication?  Facebook?  Websites?  Wrong!  She did!  Knowing she was not meant to become a famous Queen, Marie de Medicis hired Rubens to make believe she was!  And she is:  She left us 24 paintings by the hand of the master, and through them she is still "alive and well." 

No surprise here: Marie was a Medicis, and from the start of the Renaissance in Florence, the family understood the immense impact of art on public opinion.  She decided to hire a foreign painter, she decided on the themes, she decided on the hanging of the canvases.  So the cycle of paintings now hanging in the Louvre was an extravagant act of self-promotion (as well as the most important Rubens collection outside his own country) and that's why this talk is titled: "Marie de Medicis: Queen of Spin.”  I hope you'll enjoy it!

Instructor: Art Historian Colette (Coco) Juilliard has a Ph.D. from the City University of New York Graduate School and an "agrégation" from the French University. The author of several books on the subject of Orientalism in French art and literature, she currently teaches cinema at Skidmore College in Paris.

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