Recorded as present in the Palazzo in various sources and documented in Carlo Giuseppe Raggi’s Guide from as early as 1780, it became part of the patrimony of the residence at an unspecified date, arriving in Genoa from Bologna where it had been produced by the "divine" Guido. The subject, particularly successful in counter-reformist times as an incitement to gentleness, is resolved by Reni by presenting Sacred Love that burns Cupid's arrows thus winning victory over sensual love which is deprived of its weapons.

The canvas in Palazzo Spinola, to which various draft sketches can be attributed, is believed to be an authentic variant of the canvas preserved in the National Museum of San Matteo in Pisa, which is not of certain authorship, and copies of the same subject are known.

During his stay in Rome to follow the bureaucratic process of the Sacra Rota for the annulment of his second marriage (to Maria Geronima De Mari), Paolo Francesco Spinola, last descendant of the Spinola di San Luca, took the opportunity to commission this work by Angelica Kauffmann, then protagonist of the most advanced artistic culture of the city. It is, hence, thanks to her, that we have this canvas (signed 1793) depicting the melancholy face of Paolo Francesco reading in his study, an image indicative of his refined taste and culture. According to the account books kept in the archive it was transferred from Rome (where the painting was executed) to Genoa in 1796 (the archive reports the payment for the transport), while it was only in 1824, that the payment to the gilder Laviosa for the execution of the frame is recorded.

The panel is part of a group of works added to the palazzo's patrimony thanks to an inheritance received from Violantina Balbi, wife of Giacomo Spinola di Luccoli who became the owner of the residence in 1824, it included, among other works, the Allegory of Peace and War by Luca Giordano.

The panel is believed to date from the second decade of the 16th century and has often been compared to the Salvator Mundi, now in the Louvre, which was also believed to be a companion piece even if, rather that the golden background around the figure of the Virgin, it is now a dark and heavy colouring that contrasts with the naturalistic rendering of the figure both in the face and in the soft rendering of the vibrant white drapery of the veil.

Located in the picture gallery of the hall on the second “noble” floor of the building, as part of the renovation and decorative renewal commissioned by Maddalena Doria Spinola in 1734, the painting is fruit of the relationship of Ansaldo Pallavicino with the painter he admired most and from whom in 1652 he purchased a large group of works including the canvas that had originally been placed on the opposite wall. The entry of the animals into the ark was donated by Giacomo Spinola to the Accademia Ligustica, where it is still preserved. Circe, also the result of a purchase by Ansaldo, is still included in the picture gallery on the second “noble” floor, while a second canvas with this subject has remained in the estate of the Spinola villa in San Michele di Pagana which was donated by Paolo and Franco Spinola in 1958 to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

Of the rich and numerous array of display silvers that graced the sideboards of Genoese aristocratic residences, arousing the amazement of visitors to the city between the 16th and 17th centuries, this is the only example, preserved in a city museum, and is a precious testimony of that rich production largely the work of a colony of Flemish silversmiths active in Genoa including Matthias Melijn and Gio Aelbosca Belga. These are respectively the authors of the basin and the two vases, also in Palazzo Spinola, commissioned around 1630 by Agostino Pallavicino, the father of Ansaldo and second owner of the palace, to whom the choice of the Colombian subject that unites them is due and which was also taken up in a second basin now lost. Considering the strong public commitment of Agostino in support of the Republic of Genoa, the choice of the figure of Christopher Columbus was intended as an example of resourcefulness and autonomy, as such it also appears in contemporary frescoes and paintings.

Of the original work, the part dedicated to the portrait of the little Ansaldo is preserved, while the part with the portrait of the father Agostino Pallavicino has been lost, during the 17th century the painting had been already been cut and then “reinstated” so as to allow its insertion in the picture gallery of Maddalena's salons at the beginning of the 18th century. In line with philological restoration criteria in the restoration of the nineteen sixties the canvas was separated from the addition and brought to its current size.

The double portrait was the second assignment given by Pallavicino to the Flemish painter from whom he had already commissioned (in 1621) the sumptuous portrait of himself, now at the Paul Getty Center in Los Angeles, on the occasion of the Embassy to Pope Gregory XV. In 1625 Agostino turned once again to the Flemish artist recently arrived in Genoa asking him, this time on the occasion of his appointment as protector of Banco di San Giorgio, a portrait with Ansaldo, his young son and heir, beside him.

One room is dedicated to the splendid terracotta of “La Convalescente” by Arturo Martini, one of the most exciting works in the museum, created by the sculptor in 1932 - and bought by the Municipality of Genoa directly from the sculptor for the sum of 12,000 lire -, a period in which the sculptor read Leopardi and viewing Etruscan funeral sculpture. The artist, who had his studio in Vado Ligure, where, for a number of reasons, he had moved from Treviso at the outbreak of the First World War marrying a young woman from the Ligurian town, inspired by the face of his daughter Maria (the "Nena"), transfigured and absorbed in a timeless, archaic and distant atmosphere and, precisely for this reason, of universal and profound human intensity, the limbs exhausted and racked by illness .
A human and tragic intensity that also transpires from the tone of his Nativity scene, a sort of decorative "scarabattola" in coloured ceramic with evident faults from the baking process exhibited at the III International Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Monza in 1927 and coming from architect Mario Labò’s collection.
No less important are the sculptures surrounding Martini's “Convalescente”: those by Giovanni Prini (Genoa 1877- Rome 1958) and Libero Andreotti (Pescia 1875- Florence 1933). The first with a “family Idol”, a bronze of 1927, of Decò style with oriental touchs in the yoga posture of the figure: the second a the sublimation of the archaic myth, that of Orpheus singing, dated to 1930, rendered with expressionist deformations in the limbs in a rough martinian plasticism.
Sheet 8: Felice Casorati, Portrait of a girl, 1930, oil on canvas pasted on plywood, 100 x 69 cm.
Other works, this time painted, of exceptional quality crown the "Convalescente" room, mostly purchased at the Venetian Biennials, including paintings by Antonio Giuseppe Santagata (Genoa 1888-1985), Ferruccio Ferrazzi (Rome 1871-1978 ), Alberto Salietti (Ravenna 1892-Chiavari 1961) and Baccio Maria Bacci. Of particular quality, a substantial and material Ingres style nude in the painting “Lo Specchio-Studio” by Felice Carena (Comiana 1876- Venice 1966), exhibited at the 1928 Biennale. “The antique head” by Piero Marussig (Trieste 1879- Pavia 1937) ), inspired by Renaissance portraits in profile, with a floral attribute; and the icy portrait of “Giovanetta”, 1931 or 32 by Antonio Donghi (Rome 1897-1963), a 20th -century reinterpretation of “the Madonnas“ by Antonello da Messina.
At the 1930 Venetian event, an absorbed and melancholic “Portrait of a Girl” by Felice Casorati (Novara 1883-Turin 1963) was purchased, which offers, on the recto, evidently disowned by the artist, an interesting nude with a sketch of male figure with the sports paper (Gazzetta dello Sport). A "soft" palette, with pastel effects, playing on blue and pink contrasts, connotes the resigned figure of the girl and the quotidian context in which she is immersed by the artist. It was a difficult choice, that of Casorati's painting: and much delayed by the Municipality of Genoa, and, in particular, by Orlando Grosso, the director of the Fine Arts Office, and of the Commissions dedicated to the national and international events. Unfortunately, all the works with nudes were discarded - as was the case with Arturo Martini's sculptures - and so it was not possible to acquire a portrait of Daphne Maughan, the painter's wife.