Frans Pourbus the Younger (1569-1622) was born at Antwerp, but spent the later part of his life in Paris, where, like his father, he enjoyed considerable reputation as a portrait painter. He had previously been working at the Mantuan Court, and became painter to Marie de Médicis after 1609. Although he occasionally produced altarpieces like the rather uninspired _Last Supper_ (No. 2068) and _St. Francis receiving the Stigmata_ (No. 2069), he was essentially a portrait painter. In this capacity he belongs rather to the age that was coming to a close than to the new era initiated by Rubens. His portraits are quite soundly painted, rich in colour, and convincing as likenesses, but lack depth of character and suavity of touch. By far his best pictures at the Louvre are the _Portrait of Henri IV._ (No. 2071) and the large _Portrait of Marie de Médicis_ (No. 2072), in which the details of the costume are particularly noteworthy. Less important is another _Portrait of Henri IV._ (No. 2070), and one of _Guillaume du Vair_ (No. 2074). Octavius van Veen, or Otto Venius (1558-1629), the painter of _The Artist and his Family_ (No. 2191), owes his fame more to the fact that he was one of the three masters under whom Rubens studied than to any intrinsic merit of his art. PETER PAUL RUBENS The Louvre owes its almost unequalled wealth in paintings by Rubens to the master’s relations with Marie de Médicis and her Court; and to this reason is due the fact that by far the largest portion of the fifty-one authentic works wholly or partly from his brush, which now form part of this great collection, date approximately from, or immediately before and after, the time during which he was busy with the famous series painted by order of that queen for the decoration of the Luxembourg Palace, and now to be seen in a setting appropriate to their florid sumptuousness in the new Rubens Gallery at the Louvre. Even so, the collection comprises examples of every phase of the master’s colossal activity—religious and historical compositions, allegorical paintings, landscapes, portraits, still life, and even _genre_-pieces, like the _Kermesse_ (No. 2115), in which he successfully competes with Teniers on a ground peculiarly his own.