Henri P's new friend in Madrid - Chantal

http://cielbleudecastille.blogspot.co.uk

Inspired by this blog above, the old Abbé Henri Proust has made a short trip to the National Gallery in London to post about all those lovely canvases on subjects close to the passions of his new friend Chantal.

Chantal herself  is actually a daughter of the Cité Ideale and has taken her native affection for the seventeenth century to the city that was never far from the political concerns of Armand-Jean himself,
MADRID.

the Hapsburg coat-of-arms

Maybe she can find some imagery of cardinal duc's opposite number in Madrid
 in the court of Phillip IV, The Count of Olivares…..'el conde-duque'

Olivares by Velázquez

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Meanwhile three royal courts; three court painters

• Philippe de Champaigne - for Louis XIII of France and Navarre

Triple portrait produced for the Roman sculptor Bernini to inform the making of his marble bust of Armand Jean

• Diego Velázquez - for Phillip IV of Spain

by son-in-law Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo

• Anthony Van Dyke - for Charles 1st of England

"…..his eyes follow you round the room."

(Both boys were later killed in the English civil war, on the Royalist side)

• And finally, the good Abbé's favourite son of France, Nicholas Poussin

An unusual un-faded canvas by Poussin showing his original coloration