The Felicity of the Regency (sketch)

At the beginning of February 1625 Rubens arrived in Paris to put the last touches to Marie de' Medici's gallery, and there was a deadline. On 11 May her daughter Henrietta Maria was to be married by proxy to Charles I of England, and the paintings were meant to be finished for the celebrations. This sketch belongs to those months. The museum dates it to 1625, three years after the other Munich designs for the cycle, because its subject arrived late, as a replacement for a scene of the queen's banishment that had become too awkward to show. Here no episode is told at all. Marie sits enthroned as the very image of good government, holding the scales, the orb and the staff of justice, while Liberality and Abundance beside her pour out the blessings of her rule.