Portrait of Marie de' Medici, Queen of France, as Juno

Description Marie de' Medici (1573-1642) is represented here as the Roman goddess Juno, the powerful wife of Jupiter, king of the Olympian gods, in whose guise her husband Henry IV is shown in the companion statuette. She is accompanied by a peacock, said by ancient writers to have been the bird that pulls Juno's chariot, signifying her splendor. Portraits of the queen that accompany those of the king-including a double portrait on a medal in the case nearby-show her in a supporting role. After Henry's murder in 1609, she became regent for her underage son, the future Louis XIII, and a great patron of the arts in her own right.

Conservation

Date	Description	Narrative
3/29/1961	Treatment	cleaned

Exhibitions

• World of Wonder. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1971-1972.
• Small Northern European Portraits from The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. National Gallery of Art, Washington. 2000.
• Women Who Ruled: Queens, Goddesses, Amazons 1500-1650. The University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor; The Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis; Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College, Wellesley. 2002.

Provenance Jacques Seligmann, Paris, by purchase; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1910, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.

Credit Acquired by Henry Walters, 1910