Monday 21 January 2013

It's Tough to Be the Queen - Part 7


I must confess that I have been putting off writing the latest installment of the Marie de’ Medici story.  The next couple of paintings just have not inspired me that much.  However, there are still more spectacular multi-story displays of hubris to come, so we will go through these two quickly to get to the gods and power-grabbing.  If you are new here or interested in catching up, there are links to the ongoing Medici Cycle series above.



First up: "The Birth of the Dauphin at Fontainebleau."




Here we see Marie just after giving birth to Louis XIII.  First we might note that the woman who just popped out a baby is wearing way more clothes than most of the people in the birthing chamber.  Evidently childbirth is much easier and neater when done on a throne.




She has handed over her precious newborn to the person you most want to have holding a child: a mostly naked man wrapped with a snake.  Well, it’s either a snake, or the baby has one freakish umbilical cord. 



Then we flash forward several years, to “The Consignment of the Regency.” 




Here dear Henry hands over charge of his empire to Marie.  Unfortunately she realizes that it is just a ball and not an actual empire, so he has to go off to war to get her one. 



This is pretty low-key for this series.  Apparently it was originally envisioned as a much more awesome painting with snakes and (probably) naked ladies, but it was all toned down to paint (ha ha) Marie in a positive light, which was a bit tricky due to circumstances that arise a bit later…



TO BE CONTINUED. 
WITH MORE NUDITY AND SNAKES.

15 comments:

  1. I wonder if the snake was the midwife - it's certainly the best-equipped one to crawl under the queen's skirt. In the Regency painting, the lady-in-waiting on the far right is making eyes at the painter. Makes me wonder if he'd recently crawled under her skirt.

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    1. All in all there was a lot of under-skirt-crawling, which given it was the French court doesn't surprise me.

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  2. It's the poor little dog that I feel sorry for - scarred for life by witnessing the whole thing.

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    1. I think that being in a birthing chamber was a standard part of puppy training back in the day--the horror quiets them down significantly (although the process sends mixed messages about bodily fluids indoors).

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  3. Maybe snake guy needed that accessory to assert his manhood in the presence of all those women. He would just look like Julia Child without it

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    1. My mother warned me to beware of a man's one-eyed snake, but I never suspected she meant it literally... Who knew it was the masculine equivalent of a handbag dog?

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  4. These are so much more...sane than the previous installments. And it disturbs me to say that a snake hanging around a baby is "sane." In the bottom one, Henry kind of looks like Don Quixote or Baron Munchausen.

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    1. It's almost as if she had a fit of sanity for the production of one painting where she was like, "What are you doing? Get those gods and sea creatures and lions out of there! I am but a woman making my mark in the world." And then she snapped out of it, like someone having a 48-hour flu, and went back to hallucinations of divinity.

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  5. I would just love to give birth on a throne...outside...near a tree. It seems so hygienic that way. Maybe that's why there's a snake. To take care of any potentially pestilenced rodents which may come near.

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    1. I bet that saves money on pest control. Modern hospitals may turn to snake-based janitorial solutions at any time...

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  6. Is that a horse pulling a chariot across the sky in that first picture? Man they really used to pull out all the stops for a birth back then.

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    1. That is the doctor on his way to his next patient. Doctors being the only ones who could afford solid-gold chariots, of course.

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  7. I was also going to ask what is going on with the horse in the sky, seems like we're missing out on the more interesting event.

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    1. It's possible that they just had sun gods in chariots deliver children instead of storks. It seems a bit classier, anyway.

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  8. I suspect the snake symbolizes Marie's character. After all, she knew about (if not planned) the assassination of the king...the day after her coronation as queen. Altogether snaky.

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