Henri de Guise at Henri III's Court at the Louvre in 1588

This painting by Albert Aublet, exhibited at the 1880 Salon, depicts a court reception held by Henri III at the Louvre in 1588, bringing together the king, Catherine de' Medici, and Henri de Guise, then at the height of his power following the Day of the Barricades. The scene captures the muted tension between the sovereign and the leader of the Catholic League, who since May 1588 had been forced to coexist with a rival made lieutenant general of the kingdom and acclaimed by the Parisian populace. This apparent courtly civility in fact concealed a mortal rivalry, which would be resolved a few months later by the duke's assassination on the king's orders at the château de Blois. Painted nearly three centuries after the events, this canvas reflects the nineteenth-century taste for meticulous historical reconstructions of the great dramatic scenes of the French Renaissance.