Paris, March 25 (NA) – The Louvre Museum will launch in May the most ambitious restoration project in its history, focused on the 24 large-format paintings that make up the Marie de' Medici cycle, by Peter Paul Rubens. The series, commissioned in 1621 by the Queen Mother of France, is considered one of the most significant in European Baroque. The intervention will last four years and will be mainly financed with funds raised by the Friends of the Louvre Society, which will contribute about four million euros. The work will be carried out “in situ”, in the same room that houses the works, where two restoration teams will operate simultaneously to meet the deadlines. This modality will oblige the closure of the space to the public from May, in parallel with a modernization of its infrastructures and security systems. According to Sébastien Allard, Director of the Painting Department, it is an unprecedented operation for the institution. The project is currently in the tender phase to define the companies responsible for the works, which will involve about fifty specialists. If the works were to be moved outside the museum, they could last more than a decade. In total, 293 square meters of pictorial surface will be restored. The preparatory studies, initiated in 2016, determined that the state of conservation was not satisfactory: the varnishes have darkened over time and a progressive detachment of the paint from its support is detected. The restoration will allow recovering the original tonalities conceived by Rubens, in a line similar to the recent intervention of 'Liberty Leading the People', by Eugène Delacroix. In addition, the technical investigations, including radiographs, revealed modifications in the compositions, which provides new information on the artist's creative process. Its transfer to the Louvre in 1793 marked a milestone in the transformation of the palace into a museum and consolidated its place in the history of European art. For the museum's experts, the results could “revolutionize” the understanding of the work and its method of work. The cycle, conceived for the Luxembourg Palace, combines history and mythology in a narrative destined to exalt the figure of Marie de' Medici.
