CIRCLE OF FRANS POURBUS THE YOUNGER 1569-1622

This grand and impressively-framed royal portrait is from the circle of Frans Pourbus the Younger, an early 17th century Flemish artist who worked as court painter to (successively) the Spanish Regents of the Netherlands, to Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, and to Marie de Medici, dowager Queen of France and regent during the minority of her son (later Louis XIII).

The present work is a portrait (after a lost original) of the young, chubby-cheeked king, probably painted when he was around twelve years old (circa 1613), a few years after he formally ascended the throne following the death of his father. This was the age at which Louis was admitted to the chivalric Order of the Holy Spirit, and here he is seen wearing the blue sash (cordon bleu) and gold Maltese Cross of the Order.

Although evidently not by the hand of the master, the present work closely emulates Pourbus' style, and is typical of Early Modern court portraiture both in its somewhat stiff, hieratic, formal pose and in the close attention given to details of costume, jewellery and draperies.

Dr David Hansen