PR 115

Unità di misura: cm; Altezza: 241; Larghezza: 148

olio su tela

La bella Italia - Torino - 2011-2012<br>Anversa et Genova: un sommet dans la peinture baroque - Anversa - 2003<br>Van Dyck a Genova - Genova - 1997<br>Cento opere di Van Dyck - Genova - 1955

Although in the past it has been attributed to Rubens (Zeri 1955), the painting is now agreed to be a work from the early years of Antoon van Dyck's Genoese sojourn, thanks in part to the 1997 restoration, which made it possible to highlight the painting technique used. The effigy, dressed in the Spanish fashion of the first decades of the 17th century, certainly belongs to the Spinola family, as evidenced by the coat of arms visible on the balustrade behind the subject. In 2012 Tordella identified the subject with Filippo Spinola, third count of Tassarolo, from a portrait drawing by Ottavio Leoni from around the same years (1623-1624; Tordella 2012 in “History of Art,” 132). In 1728 the painting was purchased by Gio. Francesco II for Palazzo Rosso, where it still stands today. Before that date, the work is known to have been in the collection of Cristoforo Lercari (Boccardo in Antwerp 2003, p. 80). The conformation of the elaborate twisted column behind the effigy is credibly inspired by that painted by Rubens in 1620 in his portrait of Aletheia Talbot, Countess of Arundel; however, the aforementioned restoration also revealed that, in an earlier draft, the artist had conceived of a simpler, cylindrical-shaped column, very similar to the one outlined in the drawing preserved in the Albertina in Vienna, which, as a result, was considered possibly preparatory for the present painting (Boccardo in Antwerp 2003, p. 80). Full-length portrait of a gentleman.