Rubens's Life of Maria de' Medici: Dissimulation and the politics of art in early seventeenth-century France

Abstract

The Life of Maria de' Medici, the biographical series of twenty-four large-size paintings executed for the Queen Mother of France by Peter Paul Rubens in 1622 -25, is traditionally regarded by historians as both a masterpiece of Baroque art and a monument of political naïveté. According to this view, the series was a disrespectful visual bravado that exposed both patron and painter to scandal by publicly advertising the queen's political ideas and ambitions, which were not only audacious, but often in opposition to those of her son King Louis XIII. This article challenges this assessment by reading the Life within the context of seventeenth-century uses of dissimulation and spatial control as strategies to limit both intellectual and physical access to information. It argues that the series was imbued with multiple layers of meaning, intended for different audiences, and that access to these was strictly controlled by the queen and her circle.