"La Gallerie du Palais du Luxembourg peinte par Rubens".

Large folio: [3]-26 pp. (crossed out ms. ownership notes on front.).

Contemp. calf covers, gilt spine with raised bands, marbled endpapers (binding a bit rubbed, def. at head and tail, corners and edges sl. worn, repaired flyleaves). In good condition.

Complete album, consisting of the preface and 27 engravings (incl. frontispiece) with engraved text by Jean-Marc Nattier: 23 page-size (1 after Van Dyck, 22 after Rubens) and 3 engravings on double pages, illustrating the marvellous paintings at the Galerie du Luxembourg, commissioned by Marie de' Medici. On return from her exile in Blois in 1621 Henri IV of France's widow Marie de' Medici commissioned the rebuilding of the Palais du Luxembourg in the style of the Pitti Palace in Florence to remind her of her childhood. With it she commissioned a number of paintings from Rubens decorate the two galleries that were to counterpoint one another on either side of the central courtyard. Rubens managed to create the first suite of paintings, as here, to celebrate the life of Marie de' Medici, but only a few sketches for the works intended to immortalise the life of her husband Henri IV, for the second gallery, before she was exiled for a second time by her son, this time to Brussels, in 1630. She died, still in exile, in 1642. The finished paintings, now hanging in the Louvre, were painted by Rubens between 1622 and 1625, they depict episodes from the Queen's life, her birth, the birth of her children, her parents, her marriage to Henri IV, her coronation, her death, her regency, and all magnified by the presence of gods from ancient mythology. Rubens, the celebrated seventeenth-century Flemish Baroque painter, whose exuberant style emphasised movement, colour, and sensuality, is also well-known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and historical paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects. He worked from a large studio in Antwerp which produced paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, but he was also a classically-educated humanist scholar, art collector, and diplomat who was knighted by both Philip IV, King of Spain, and Charles I, King of England. All engravings in excellent condition with generous margins.
Ref. Brunet IV:1443. - Cohen 914-915.