Portrait of King Louis XIII of France (1611): Art, History and Details

Portrait of King Louis XIII of France (1611) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Frans Pourbus (Flemish, 1569–1622).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Although ten-year-old Louis XIII was king of France, his mother Marie de’ Medici remained in power until the boy officially came of age. Pourbus inscribed the sitter’s age and the painting’s year in the composition: “The holy year 1611 at his age of 10 years.” Marie de’ Medici commissioned this work as she negotiated marriages for her two children to Philip III of Spain and Mary Marguerite of Austria, alliances that led to the European domination of the next two centuries by the Bourbon and Habsburg families.

Object facts

• Title: Portrait of King Louis XIII of France
• Date: 1611
• Creator attribution: Frans Pourbus (Flemish, 1569–1622)
• Culture: Flanders
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 186.7 x 122.4 x 6.3 cm (73 1/2 x 48 3/16 x 2 1/2 in.); Unframed: 159.3 x 95.3 cm (62 11/16 x 37 1/2 in.)
• Collection: P - Netherlandish-Flemish
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 2003.225

A detail from the museum

While the color pink has feminine associations now, it was commonly worn by girls and boys alike in the 1600s.

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.