Palais du Luxembourg
The Luxembourg Palace was modeled after Palazzo Pittiin Florence at the request of Marie de Médicis.
The palace was built as a royal residence for Marie de Médicis, mother of king Louis XIII of France.
Marie de Médicis desired to make a building similar to her native Florence's Palazzo Pitti, and to this effect had the main architect Salomon de Brosse send architect Clément Metézeau to Florence to obtain drawings. Marie de Médicis bought the structure and its fairly extensive domain in 1612 and commissioned the new building, which she referred to as her Palais Médicis, in 1615. Its construction and furnishing formed her major artistic project, though nothing remains today of the interiors as they were created for her, save some architectural fragments reassembled in the Salle du Livre d'Or. The suites of paintings she commissioned, in the subjects of which she expressed her requirements through her agents and advisors, are scattered among museums.
Floor plan (1752) shows the large enclosed cour d'honneur and the long Rubens gallery in the right wing
Marie de Médicis installed her household in 1625, while work on interiors continued. The apartments in the right wing on the western side were reserved for the Queen and the matching suite to the east, for her son, Louis XIII, when he was visiting.
A series of twenty-four triumphant canvases commissioned from Peter Paul Rubens were installed in the Galerie de Rubens on the main floor of the western wing. A series of paintings executed for her Cabinet doré ("gilded study") was identified by Anthony Blunt in 1967. Construction was finished in 1631; the Queen Mother was forced from court shortly after. Louis XIII commissioned further decorations for the Palace from Nicolas Poussin and Philippe de Champaigne.
In 1642, Marie bequeathed the Luxembourg to her second and favourite son, Gaston d'Orléans, who called it the Palais d'Orléans, but by popular will it was still known by its original name.
Upon Gaston's death, the palace passed to his widow, then to his elder daughter by his first marriage. In 1660, Anne de Montpensier sold the Luxembourg to her younger half-sister, who, in turn, gave it to her cousin, king Louis XIV, in 1694.
To the west of the Luxembourg, and communicating with it through interior courts, the sixteenth-century original hôtel of the duc de Piney-Luxembourg was rebuilt during the same years, the smaller palace now called the Petit-Luxembourg; it is composed of two main blocks, separated by a courtyard that is entered through a grand convex portal flanked by Tuscan columns.
The palace was built as a royal residence for Marie de Médicis, mother of king Louis XIII of France.
Marie de Médicis desired to make a building similar to her native Florence's Palazzo Pitti, and to this effect had the main architect Salomon de Brosse send architect Clément Metézeau to Florence to obtain drawings. Marie de Médicis bought the structure and its fairly extensive domain in 1612 and commissioned the new building, which she referred to as her Palais Médicis, in 1615. Its construction and furnishing formed her major artistic project, though nothing remains today of the interiors as they were created for her, save some architectural fragments reassembled in the Salle du Livre d'Or. The suites of paintings she commissioned, in the subjects of which she expressed her requirements through her agents and advisors, are scattered among museums.
Floor plan (1752) shows the large enclosed cour d'honneur and the long Rubens gallery in the right wing
Marie de Médicis installed her household in 1625, while work on interiors continued. The apartments in the right wing on the western side were reserved for the Queen and the matching suite to the east, for her son, Louis XIII, when he was visiting.
A series of twenty-four triumphant canvases commissioned from Peter Paul Rubens were installed in the Galerie de Rubens on the main floor of the western wing. A series of paintings executed for her Cabinet doré ("gilded study") was identified by Anthony Blunt in 1967. Construction was finished in 1631; the Queen Mother was forced from court shortly after. Louis XIII commissioned further decorations for the Palace from Nicolas Poussin and Philippe de Champaigne.
In 1642, Marie bequeathed the Luxembourg to her second and favourite son, Gaston d'Orléans, who called it the Palais d'Orléans, but by popular will it was still known by its original name.
Upon Gaston's death, the palace passed to his widow, then to his elder daughter by his first marriage. In 1660, Anne de Montpensier sold the Luxembourg to her younger half-sister, who, in turn, gave it to her cousin, king Louis XIV, in 1694.
To the west of the Luxembourg, and communicating with it through interior courts, the sixteenth-century original hôtel of the duc de Piney-Luxembourg was rebuilt during the same years, the smaller palace now called the Petit-Luxembourg; it is composed of two main blocks, separated by a courtyard that is entered through a grand convex portal flanked by Tuscan columns.