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Sir Peter Paul Rubens Flemish, 1577 - 1640 Marchesa Brigida Spinola Doria, 1606 oil on canvas, 152.5 x 99 cm (60 1/16 x 39 in.) Samuel H. Kress Collection 1961.9.60 |
Object 2 of 8
On at least four occasions during his long stay in Italy, Rubens worked in Genoa, a wealthy seaport. This proud Genoese aristocrat, by birth a Spinola, married Giacomo Massimiliano Doria in 1605. Painted at the age of twenty-two in the year following her marriage, the marchesa wears a magnificent silvery satin dress that may be her wedding gown.
Following the sixteenth-century Venetian master Titian, Rubens built up layer upon layer of translucent glazes and added free strokes of thick highlights. In contrast to this loose brushwork in the gleaming white gown and crimson drapery, the tight Flemish technique Rubens had practiced in his native Flanders defines the carefully detailed face, intricately jeweled coiffure, and spectacular lace collar.
Rubens' preliminary drawing and a print made after this painting indicate that the National Gallery's portrait is only a fragment. Initially the figure was full-length, and the architecture receded to an open landscape. Sometime after 1854 the canvas was cut down, possibly because its edges had been damaged.
Anthony van Dyck's Marchesa Elena Grimaldi of 1623 -- also painted in Genoa -- was directly inspired by this portrait and conveys an impression of its original scale and grandeur.
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