Rubens's painting of the transfer of the regency to Marie de' Medici in 1610

Louis XIII is nine years old in this painting and exactly half the height of his parents, but how elegantly the boy is dressed! The painting by Peter Paul Rubens is entitled "The Preparation of the King for the War in Germany, or the Transfer of the Regency to the Queen". Collection of the Louvre.

It records the events of 1610. We see Henry IV handing Marie de' Medici a globe in the colours of the French royal heraldry, as a token of her regency during his absence. Louis holds his mamma by the hand. Barely a month and a half later, Henry would be killed by a Catholic fanatic, and Louis would become king under the regency of his mother, who had been crowned at Saint-Denis the day before the king's assassination

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Rubens's painting of the transfer of the regency to Marie de' Medici in 1610

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