Portrait of King Louis XIII of France
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
unframed: 159.3 × 95.3 cm · framed: 186.7 × 122.4 × 6.3 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
European Painting and Sculpture
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund
Accession Number
2003.225
Tags
About this artwork
Although ten-year-old Louis XIII was king of France, his mother Marie de’ Medici remained in power until the boy officially came of age. Pourbus inscribed the sitter’s age and the painting’s year in the composition: “The holy year 1611 at his age of 10 years.” Marie de’ Medici commissioned this work as she negotiated marriages for her two children to Philip III of Spain and Mary Marguerite of Austria, alliances that led to the European domination of the next two centuries by the Bourbon and Habs...