Peter Paul Rubens 1577 – 1640, The Medici Cycle: The Triumph of Juliers, 1st September 1610, 1622 – 1625
The Marie de' Medici Cycle is a beautiful series of twenty-four paintings by Rubens commissioned by Marie de' Medici, widow of Henry IV of France, for the Luxembourg Palace in Paris. Twenty-one of these paintings depict Marie's own struggles and triumphs in life. The remaining three are portraits of herself and her parents. The paintings now hang in the Louvre in Paris.
The Victory at Jülich shows the only military event that the Queen participated in: the return of Jülich (or Juliers in French) to the Protestant princes. Being a crossing of Ruhr, Juliers was of great strategic importance for France and thus the French victory was chosen to be the glorious subject of Rubens' painting.
The wonderful thing about printed paintings on pocket squares is that they can produce a number of different effects depending on how they are folded and creates a great topic for conversation once pulled out of the breast pocket.
