Retrato do barão Henri de Vicq

Henri de Vicq was ambassador of the Archdukes Albert and Isabella, the rulers of the Southern Netherlands, to the court of Louis XIII. In Paris he introduced Rubens to the queen mother, Marie de' Medici, and urged her to make use of him. Out of that came the commission for the 24 large canvases on her life painted for the Luxembourg Palace, which now hang in a gallery of their own in the same wing of the Louvre as this small panel. The museum dates the portrait to about 1625, the year the Medici cycle was put up, while noting that the date rests on a late anecdote and that on style the picture could as easily be a decade older. Rubens's own letters show de Vicq giving him lodging in Paris in 1629. The portrait is painted on wood, 74 centimetres high, and hangs in room 855 of the Richelieu wing.