The Louvre is launching a major project to restore the Rubens paintings belonging to Marie de Medici.

The Louvre is preparing to launch one of the largest restoration projects ever undertaken in its paintings department. Starting in the fall of 2026, the 24 monumental canvases of Rubens' Marie de Medici Cycle will undergo in situ restoration, directly in the gallery that houses them. A decade in the making, this operation aims both to save the fragile works and to restore some of the lost brilliance to this major collection of Baroque paintings.

A restoration made urgent by the condition of the artworks

The museum decided to launch this program after a condition assessment conducted in 2016, which was subsequently confirmed by studies carried out in 2020 and 2023. According to the Louvre, the collection is both in a worrying state of preservation and in an unsatisfactory state of presentation. Several paintings are suffering from lifting of the paint layer, while the varnishes have oxidized over time, yellowing the surfaces and significantly altering the legibility of the colors.

Interviewed by AFP, Sébastien Allard, director of the Louvre's paintings department, summed up the problem very concretely: "The skies should be blue, they are greenish. The reds are completely muted." In other words, what constitutes the very strength of Rubens — his materials, his light, his palette — now appears partially betrayed by the aging of old restorations and general grime.

Four years of work in the very heart of the Medici Gallery

The decision was made to restore the cycle on-site, in the Medici Gallery, which will be closed from May onwards to be transformed into a large workshop. According to the Louvre, the 550 m² room will be custom-equipped to accommodate this exceptional project: easels adapted to very large formats, treatment tables, solvent fume hoods, overhead cranes, and specific safety devices. Two teams of restorers will be selected to work simultaneously on two sets of twelve paintings.

The scale of the project reflects the magnitude of this collection of paintings, created between 1622 and 1625 for the Luxembourg Palace: 24 works, nearly 293 square meters of painted surface, and a campaign expected to last four years, according to the museum. Funding, estimated at around 4 million euros, is provided by the Société des Amis du Louvre (Friends of the Louvre Society). The Louvre also specifies its intention to make certain stages of the restoration visible to the public, so that this project does not remain entirely hidden behind the gallery's closed doors.

A pivotal collection in Rubens' career

The Marie de Medici Cycle is not just another collection. According to the Louvre, it is the most important commission ever executed by Rubens. Conceived as a vast political celebration of the queen, widow of Henry IV and mother of Louis XIII, this cycle unfolds her life, elevating her to the status of a historical allegory. Blaise Ducos, a heritage curator specializing in Flemish paintings, reminded AFP that it can be defined as "a vast political allegory constructed around the queen."

This restoration therefore also has historical significance. It will not only stabilize the works, but also refine our understanding of their creation, their materials, and the numerous interventions they have undergone since the 18th century. The Louvre hopes in this way to restore the full coherence of this exceptional collection, admired for centuries by artists such as Watteau, Fragonard, and Delacroix, and to fully situate the cycle in what it was from the outset: a manifesto of power, painting, and excess.