Portrait of Henri IV as Mars

This allegorical portrait, painted around 1605-1606 by **Jacob Bunel** — long attributed to Ambroise Dubois — for the Diana gallery at the Château de Fontainebleau, depicts **Henri IV** in the guise of **Mars**, the Roman god of war. This glorious iconography, conceived while the kingdom was enjoying an unprecedented period of stability after decades of civil war, retrospectively celebrated the king's military valour while legitimising his authority through a symbolic connection with classical antiquity, a device then common in court art intended to magnify royal power. Now held at the Musée national du château de Pau, this work illustrates how the memory of the campaigns of reconquest (Arques, Ivry, Amiens) continued, more than a decade after the events, to nourish the sovereign's public image.