Provenance

Giovanni Vincenzo Imperiale

Italian, 1582 - 1648

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Shown from the knees up, a pale-skinned man wears a tall, black hat, wide white ruffs at the neck and cuffs, and a voluminous black garment in this vertical portrait painting. The dark costume nearly blends into the brown background in some places, so details are difficult to make out. The man sits in a chair so his body and knees are angled to our left. His face is also turned in that direction, but he looks at us from the corners of his brown eyes under dark, heavy brows. He has a thin face with a long, bumped nose. His brown mustache flicks up at the outer ends, and a thin line of hair down his chin creates his beard. His black hat has a high, rounded top and is draped with black fabric and a rosette. The ruffs at his neck and cuffs are pleated into tall, narrow figure eights. His black garment appears to puff widely at the shoulders and fold back over his lap. He wears a ring on the pinky finger of his left hand, which holds a piece of paper. The other hand hangs limp from where his arm rests on the chair, which appears to be upholstered in dark maroon-red fabric and is topped at the back with gold finials. A square window pierces the brown wall behind the man in the top left quadrant of the canvas. A few gold lines glint on the fringed brown curtain pulled up over the window, which opens onto a dark, perhaps nighttime landscape. A coat of arms hangs on the wall behind the chair, to our right of the man’s head. A shield is vertically striped with white to either side of a red stripe with a bird of prey silhouetted in black beneath a gold crown. Gold lettering on the wall below reads, “IO: VINSS: IMPS. ANN: SAL: 1626 AET: SVAE: 44.”
Sir Anthony van Dyck, Giovanni Vincenzo Imperiale, 1626, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.89

Giovanni Vincenzo Imperiale

Sir Anthony van Dyck · 1626 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1942.9.89

Shown from the knees up, a woman with smooth, pale skin and rosy cheeks wears a satin gown and densely pleated, wide collar in this vertical portrait painting. She stands with her body angled to our left but turns to look at us from the corners of her luminous brown eyes. She has curved, black brows, a straight nose, and her strawberry-red, bow-shaped lips turn up in a slight smile. Her honey-brown hair is tightly curled under an elaborate pearl, gold, and feather headdress in the shape of a bouquet of flowers. The pearl earring in the ear we can see rests against the lace-edged ruff, which presses up against the back of her head and extends to the width of her shoulders. She wears a long-sleeved, champagne-white satin gown trimmed with gold and jewels. A white satin cloak with amber-gold lining falls open from the elbow of each sleeve. The cuffs are edged with layers of narrow lace, and she holds a mostly closed fan in her right hand, farther from us. Both arms hang by her sides. Behind her head and shoulders, cranberry-red drapery billows down from above over forest-green marble columns. Light shines from our left, illuminating a brown pillar and mantel behind the woman, along the left side of the canvas.
Sir Peter Paul Rubens, Marchesa Brigida Spinola Doria, 1606, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.60

Marchesa Brigida Spinola Doria

Sir Peter Paul Rubens · 1606 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1961.9.60