The Council of Gods (Sketch for the Medici Cycle) No.14

When Rubens began this design in 1622, the marriage policy it celebrates was already a sore point at the French court. Seven years earlier Marie de' Medici, ruling as regent, had bound France to Spain with a double royal wedding, her son Louis XIII to a Spanish princess and her daughter Elisabeth to the heir of the Spanish throne. Her son, and later his minister Cardinal Richelieu, steered a very different course, toward a France that leaned on no one, least of all the Habsburgs. Here the queen has the gods on her side. They meet in council among the clouds to approve the alliance, and the detail worth finding is the globe, which carries both the Habsburg eagle and the Bourbon lily. The finished canvas, about seven metres wide, belongs to the Louvre.