The Abduction of Helen is a 1628-1629 oil on canvas painting by Guido Reni, now in the Louvre Museum in Paris. [1]
The Abduction of Helen is a 1628-1629 oil on canvas painting by Guido Reni, now in the Louvre Museum in Paris. [1]
In 1627, via his ambassadors in Italy, Philip IV of Spain had ordered from Guido Reni a large canvas showing the rape of Helen of Troy. Like Reni, cardinal Bernardino Spada was then in Bologna, in his case as papal legate. This allowed him to follow the commission personally, especially since Philip's rank gave it political implications of interest to the papal court. Some art historians suggest that - in this Thirty Years War context - the pro-French pope Urban VIII even used the work to send a message to his arch-enemy on the Spanish throne. [2] Some have argued that it and Guercino's The Death of Dido were part of a joint allegory directed at Philip IV and Maria by the papal court.
After its completion Reni and the Spanish ambassadors fell out over his payment and the painting went unsold, with Spada taking the opportunity to suggest Maria de' Medici buy it instead. She accepted the suggestion and it thus set off for France. [2] When Abduction reached France but could not be collected by Maria (who had in the meantime fallen from power), it was instead acquired in or before 1654 by marquess Louis Phélypeaux de La Vrillière, who put it in his now-lost gallery in Paris and commissioned a pendant for it by Pietro da Cortona with the title Caesar Giving Cleopatra the Throne of Egypt. [2] It appeared in a posthumous inventory of his estate and was sold off by his grandson Louis III de La Vrillière (1672-1725) to Louis Raulin Rouillé, controller-general of the posts, whose widow in turn sold it in 1713 to Louis-Alexandre de Bourbon, comte de Toulouse (1678-1737), Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan's legitimised son. [1] It was inherited by the comte's son Louis de Bourbon, duc de Penthièvre (1725-1793) in 1737 and seized upon the French Revolution along with the rest of his collection. [1] Taken to the Louvre, it was first exhibited in the Musée Central des Arts in 1801 and was placed in the château de Maisons-Laffitte for safety during the First World War. [1]
The House of Bourbon is a European dynasty of French origin, a branch of the Capetian dynasty, the royal House of France. Bourbon kings first ruled France and Navarre in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Spanish Bourbon dynasty held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma. Spain and Luxembourg have monarchs of the House of Bourbon.
Philip V was King of Spain from 1 November 1700 to 14 January 1724, and again from 6 September 1724 to his death in 1746. His total reign of 45 years is the longest in the history of the Spanish monarchy. Philip instigated many important reforms in Spain, most especially the centralization of power of the monarchy and the suppression of regional privileges, via the Nueva Planta decrees, and restructuring of the administration of the Spanish Empire on the Iberian peninsula and its overseas regions.
Marie de' Medici was Queen of France and Navarre as the second wife of King Henry IV of France of the House of Bourbon, and Regent of the Kingdom of France officially between 1610 and 1617 during the minority of her son, Louis XIII of France. Her mandate as regent legally expired in 1614, when her son reached the age of majority, but she refused to resign and continued as regent until she was removed by a coup in 1617.
Charles III was King of Spain (1759–1788). He also was Duke of Parma and Piacenza, as Charles I (1731–1735); King of Naples, as Charles VII, and King of Sicily, as Charles V (1734–1759). He was the fifth son of Philip V of Spain and the eldest son of Philip's second wife, Elisabeth Farnese. He was a proponent of enlightened absolutism and regalism.
Henri, Count of Chambord and Duke of Bordeaux was disputedly King of France from 2 to 9 August 1830 as Henry V, although he was never officially proclaimed as such. Afterwards, he was the Legitimist pretender to the throne of France from 1844 until his death in 1883.
Guido Reni was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, although his works showed a classical manner, similar to Simon Vouet, Nicolas Poussin, and Philippe de Champaigne. He painted primarily religious works, but also mythological and allegorical subjects. Active in Rome, Naples, and his native Bologna, he became the dominant figure in the Bolognese School that emerged under the influence of the Carracci.
The Duchy of Parmaand Piacenza, was an Italian state created in 1545 and located in northern Italy, in the current region of Emilia-Romagna.
Mariana Victoria of Spain was an Infanta of Spain by birth and was later the Queen of Portugal as wife of King Joseph I. She acted as regent of Portugal in 1776–1777, during the last months of her husband's life and as advisor to her daughter, Maria I of Portugal, in her reign.
Louis Alexandre de Bourbon, a legitimated prince of the blood royal, was the son of Louis XIV and of his mistress Françoise-Athénaïs, marquise de Montespan. At the age of five, he became grand admiral of France.
The Palazzo Spada is a palace located on Piazza di Capo Ferro #13 in the rione Regola of Rome, Italy. Standing very close to the Palazzo Farnese, it has a garden facing towards the Tiber river.
René de Froulay, Comte de Tessé was a French soldier and diplomat during the reign of Louis XIV and the 1715-1723 Regency.
Louis Phélypeaux (1672–1725), marquis de La Vrillière, was a French statesman.
Giovanni Domenico Cerrini (1609–1681), also called Gian Domenico Cerrini or il Cavalier Perugino, was a painter of the Baroque period, born in Perugia and active mainly in Rome and influenced in large part by painters of the Bolognese School.
A crown-cardinal was a cardinal protector of a Roman Catholic nation, nominated or funded by a Catholic monarch to serve as their representative within the College of Cardinals and, on occasion, to exercise the right claimed by some monarchs to veto a candidate for election to the papacy. More generally, the term may refer to any cardinal significant as a secular statesman or elevated at the request of a monarch.
Louis XIV (1638–1715), was the son of King Louis XIII of France and Queen Anne, and the Bourbon monarch of the Kingdom of France.
Prince Francis of the Two Sicilies, Count of Trapani was a member of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.
The Galleria Spada is a museum in Rome, which is housed in the Palazzo Spada on Piazza Capo di Ferro. The palazzo is also famous for its façade and for the forced perspective gallery by Francesco Borromini.
The Death of Dido is a 1631 oil on canvas painting by Guercino, commissioned by Cardinal Bernardino Spada for Maria de' Medici which now hangs in the Galleria Spada in Rome.
Annunciation is a oil on canvas painting by Guido Reni, commissioned by Marie de Médicis and probably painted in early 1629. The first large painting by the artist to reach France, it is now Inventory Number 521 in the Louvre Museum, displayed on the first floor in Room 12 of the Grande Galerie. Reni also produced an earlier and less-worked-up version of the work in 1621 for the church of San Pietro in Valle, Fano which is now in that town's art gallery.