Louvre Plans Its ‘Most Ambitious’ Painting Restoration Ever: A Refresh for Rubens’s Medici Cycle
The Louvre announced a four-year restoration of Peter Paul Rubens’s Marie de’ Medici cycle, calling it the “most ambitious restoration in the history of the Department of Paintings.” The 24 canvases, commissioned in 1621 by Marie de’ Medici and displayed together in the Galérie Medicis, will go off view after the fall as the gallery is converted into a restoration studio; the museum notes the cycle totals about 3,100 square feet of painted surface. A 2016 analysis and subsequent research in 2020 raised “grave concern” about yellowed varnish and visually discordant past retouching, which the Louvre says now makes the works unsuitable for display. The museum did not disclose the total cost, but said the Society of Friends of the Louvre contributed $4.64 million; the project is led by curators Sébastien Allard, Blaise Ducos, and Oriane Lavit.
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This story was covered in Restitution Shockwaves and Museums Under Pressure