Design for a Frontispiece with Hercules and Minerva

Unsettled by the Fronde-the ongoing civil conflict between Protestants and Catholics that plagued France from 1648 to 1653-Bourdon accepted a position in Stockholm serving as court painter to Queen Christina of Sweden during those years. Although executed after the artist's return to Paris, this frontispiece was meant to frame a portrait of Queen Christina; the cherubs above flank a space reserved for her coat of arms. Surrounding the central medallion are Minerva and Hercules in a peaceful attitude, at left, and as warriors, at right. Thuillier suggests this initial project with its martial symbolism was abandoned when the queen abdicated her post in 1654.
In anticipation of Christina's visit to Paris in 1656, the project was revived. Bourdon revised his figures for Michel Lasne's engraved portrait, which he issued in several printed variations.
This decorative sheet, unique in Bourdon's oeuvre, belonged to the connoisseur Pierre-Jean Mariette. Although Mariette preferred mats of uniform size for his drawings, his standard format of the mounts was sometimes altered to accommodate larger compositions, such as this sheet.