NATTIER, Jean Marc

18th c.

Engraving after a painting

17 3/4 x 13 1/2"

Artists Jean Marc Nattier and his brother Jean Baptiste Nattier inherited from their father Marc Nattier a royal license to reproduce Rubens’s twenty-four monumental paintings depicting Marie de’ Medici’s life that previously decorated the Luxembourg Palace (now housed in the Louvre Museum). The project was a great undertaking that involved both brothers as draughtsman, and the most prominent French engravers of the time, including Bernard Picart. In 1710 the prints were issued under the title Galerie du Palais du Luxembourg. The engraving of Rubens’s The Conclusion of Peace in Angers on 10 August 1620 is an allegory on the truce between Marie de’ Medici and her son Louis XIII after the defeat of her rebellion. Mercury leads the queen, encouraged by Innocence in red, up to a temple. The figure of Peace, dressed in white and holding a torch, burns the weapons of war as she confronts the Vices of Blind Fury, Envy, and Fraud.

18th century

NATTIER, Jean Marc

b. France, 16851766

1971.138