of Suzanne
Fourment. The ignoble Kermess, 2115, will be familiar to readers of
Zola.

Section F on the L. is occupied by a rich collection of Rembrandt's
works: 2548, the oft-reproduced Flayed Ox, is a masterly rendering of
an unattractive subject; no number, Old Man Reading; in 2547 the
artist has immortalised his faithful servant, Hendrickje Stoffels;
2536, Tobit and the Angel; 2549 and 2550, Bathsheba, and Susannah and
the Elders are two studies of the nude; 2542, The Joiner's Family,
formerly known as the Holy Family; 2540, Philosopher in Meditation.
2537, The Good Samaritan; and 2539, The Supper at Emmaus, are painted
with profound and reverent piety. Opposite the Rembrandts are Gerard
Dow's masterpiece; 2348, The Sick Woman, and other works by the same
artist. We now enter at the end of the Grande Galerie, the new

SALLE VANDYCK, ROOM XVII.

Here, among other portraits, by the first of portrait painters
(according to Reynolds) hangs the superb rendering of Charles I.,
1967, bought by Louis XV. for Madame du Barry's boudoir on the fiction
that it was a family picture, since the page holding the horse was
named Barry. Michelet says that he never visited the Louvre without
pausing to muse before this historic canvas.[209] Before we descend to
the new Rubens room we note by this master three large canvases, 2086,
2087, 2096: Birth of Marie de' Medici at Florence; her education; the
widowed Queen as Regent of France, which properly belong to the suite
of paintings exposed in the

SALLE DE RUBENS, ROOM XVIII.

to which we now descend. In this sumptuous hall, specially erected for
the purpose, are exhibited, with the three exceptions noted, the
famous paintings completed in 1625 by the artist and his pupils for
the Luxembourg Palace to the order of the Regent Marie. These spacious
and grandiose compositions illustrate in pompous and pagan symbolism
the chief events in her career: all the principal figures are due to
Reubens' own hand. Reynolds was wont to say of Reubens' colouring that
his figures looked as if they fed on roses: these, however, would seem
to have fed upon less ethereal diet. L. of entrance, 2085, The Three
Fates spinning Marie's destiny; L. wall, 2088, Reception of her
Portrait; R. wall, 2089, Her Marriage by Procuration to Henry--the
Grand Duke Ferdinand of Tuscany, her uncle, places the ring on her
finger; L., 2090, Disembarkation at Marseilles; R., 2091, The Marriage
at Lyons; L., 2092, Birth