Portrait of Marchesa Brigida Spinola-Doria

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Portrait of Marchesa Brigida Spinola-Doria: Peter Paul Rubens

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Peter Paul Rubens Oil Painting - Portrait of Marchesa Brigida Spinola-Doria

Keywords: Portrait, Marchesa, Brigida, Spinola, Doria

Work Overview: Portrait of Marchesa Brigida Spinola-Doria
Peter Paul Rubens
Alternative name: Portrait of Marchesa Brigida Spinola-Doria
Date: 1606
Style: Baroque
Genre: portrait
Media: oil, canvas
152.5 x 99 cm (60 1/16 x 39 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington

The Portrait of Marchesa Brigida Spinola-Doria is an oil painting by Peter Paul Rubens, dating to 1606. It is now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.. It was commissioned by Marquess Giacomo Massimiliano Doria, of Genoa, and shows his wife (and cousin) shortly after their wedding in 1605; she came from the equally prominent Spinola family. He died in 1613 and she remarried another Doria. It has been cut several times on each side, removing the garden shown in the background and the lower part of the figure.

The overall dimensions of the painting are now 152 by 98 centimetres (60 by 39 in) after the original was reduced in size during the 19th century.[2] Rubens completed a pen and brown ink study for the painting, which is held in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, enabling identification of sections eliminated.[2] Details removed include the bottom of the Marchesa's floor-length wedding gown as the painting has been cut just below her knees and the architecture that formed the backdrop.[2] Writing in The Burlington Magazine in 1951, Christopher Norris indicated the sketch portrayed a woman older than the 22-year-old Marchesa.[3]

In the painting the Marchesa is placed in an opulent setting to convey luxury; adorned with jewels, she wears a satin and lace dress with a broad ruff round her neck.[1] Light is used to emphasise the draping of her bulky wedding gown and she looks down on the viewer establishing the necessity to site the finished portrait above the height of viewers.

Marquess Giacomo Massimiliano Doria commissioned the portrait of his bride – they married on 9 July 1605 – and the painting remained in his ownership until his death in 1613 when it passed to his brother, Giovanni Carlo Doria (1576-1625). It subsequently became the property of Marchessa Brigida Spinola-Doria's second husband, probably in 1625, passing back to the Marchesa until her death in 1661. It remained in the family until given to relatives of Rati Opizzone. By 1848 it was held in Paris by Simon Horsín-Déon. Four years later, in 1854, the portrait was in London and sold several times before being purchased by the Samuel H. Kress foundation in 1957 who donated it to the National Gallery of Art in 1961.[4]

First exhibited in 1952 at the Minneapolis Institute of Art when it was likely in the ownership of the Duveen Brothers, it was also displayed at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1953. Since 1961 it has regularly been featured in exhibitions.

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Peter Paul Rubens lived and studied in Italy between 1600 and 1609, absorbing the country's cultural riches and artistic heritage. During a stay in Genoa in 1606, he painted the portrait of Marchesa Brigida Spinola Doria. The 22-year-old newlywed was from one of the republic's leading noble families. The imposing setting and the marchesa's aristocratic appearance leave little doubt that she was a person of wealth and status. Rubens integrated light and color, as well as the marchesa's pose and the dynamic diagonals of the architecture, to enliven her stately image. Light flooding into the scene creates boldly expressive folds in her heavy satin dress, while the red of the drape adds dramatic emphasis. The direction of her gaze and the perspective of the architecture indicate that the painting was meant to be hung high on a wall—well above the viewer.

A drawing in the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City reveals that the picture was originally even grander: Rubens executed a full-length portrait, with the marchesa standing on a terrace with a view into the distant landscape at the left, but unfortunately, at some point during the 19th century, the canvas was cut down to its present format.

The marchesa's young face, animated by her large, keen brown eyes and gentle smile, is set off by her enormous yet elegant ruff. Her commanding presence is further accentuated by the glowing satin, the lace of her gown, her jewels, and the elaborate hair ornament crowning her carefully curled locks. Behind her, the rich luster of the marble and stone of a palazzo add to the sense of limitless luxury. The Spinola family, major art patrons in Genoa, derived their affluence from mercantile and banking enterprises. It was the norm for families to consolidate their wealth through intermarriage, and Brigida Spinola married her cousin Giacomo Massimiliano Doria in 1605. Widowed in 1613, she later married the widower Giovanni Vincenzo Imperiale, a senator of the Genoese republic who was also devoted to poetry and art collecting. The marchesa's self-possession also may have been engendered by the unusual—for that era—legal rights and civic role that Genoa's constitution granted its women. The future Pope Pius II, while still a youthful secretary to a Cardinal, commented that Genoa was a "paradise for women."

Rubens visited Genoa, a wealthy financial and mercantile center, at least twice and clearly admired the city and its people. Their active lifestyles as bankers, merchants, ship owners, and military leaders would have reminded him of Antwerp, the economic and cultural center of the Southern Netherlands. By the time he made this portrait, Rubens had been in Italy six years. Trained in classical ideals and philosophy, he had travelled from Antwerp to Italy around 1600 to experience firsthand its artistic traditions, not only those coming from antiquity and the Renaissance, including the work of Raphael and Michelangelo, but also those being created by contemporary artists such as Caravaggio. The inspiration he gained from this multifaceted exposure profoundly affected his own style of painting and became the foundation for his future work.

Following his stay in Italy, Rubens returned to Antwerp in 1609, at the start of the Twelve Years' Truce, and became court painter to the regents for the Spanish crown in the Southern Netherlands, Archduke Albert and Archduchess Isabella. It was a period of peace and prosperity, and Rubens's international artistic reputation resulted in numerous commissions for portraits and grand history paintings. He established a large workshop and developed close working relationships with other important masters, including Anthony van Dyck, whose portrait of Brigida Spinola's second husband, Giovanni Vincenzo Imperiale, is in the collection of the National Gallery of Art (NGA 1942.9.89). Rubens's majestic Marchesa Brigida Spinola Doria also inspired Van Dyck's Marchesa Elena Grimaldi Cattaneo (NGA 1942.9.92), the imposing portrait of another Genoese noblewoman, which is a collection highlight as well.

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The painting was done while Rubens was in Genoa in 1606. It was cut down from a full-length portrait in which the young Marchesa (age 22) appears in the porch of a villa. We know this from a study drawing for the portrait, which is in the The Morgan Library and Museum, New York.

Peter Paul Rubens lived and studied in Italy between 1600 and 1609, absorbing the country's cultural riches and artistic heritage. During a stay in Genoa in 1606, he painted the portrait of Marchesa Brigida Spinola Doria. The 22-year-old newlywed was from one of the republic's leading noble families. The imposing setting and the marchesa's aristocratic appearance leave little doubt that she was a person of wealth and status. Rubens integrated light and color, as well as the marchesa's pose and the dynamic diagonals of the architecture, to enliven her stately image. Light flooding into the scene creates boldly expressive folds in her heavy satin dress, while the red of the drape adds dramatic emphasis. The direction of her gaze and the perspective of the architecture indicate that the painting was meant to be hung high on a wall—well above the viewer.

A drawing in the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City reveals that the picture was originally even grander: Rubens executed a full-length portrait, with the marchesa standing on a terrace with a view into the distant landscape at the left, but unfortunately, at some point during the 19th century, the canvas was cut down to its present format.

The marchesa's young face, animated by her large, keen brown eyes and gentle smile, is set off by her enormous yet elegant ruff. Her commanding presence is further accentuated by the glowing satin, the lace of her gown, her jewels, and the elaborate hair ornament crowning her carefully curled locks. Behind her, the rich luster of the marble and stone of a palazzo add to the sense of limitless luxury. The Spinola family, major art patrons in Genoa, derived their affluence from mercantile and banking enterprises. It was the norm for families to consolidate their wealth through intermarriage, and Brigida Spinola married her cousin Giacomo Massimiliano Doria in 1605. Widowed in 1613, she later married the widower Giovanni Vincenzo Imperiale, a senator of the Genoese republic who was also devoted to poetry and art collecting. The marchesa's self-possession also may have been engendered by the unusual—for that era—legal rights and civic role that Genoa's constitution granted its women. The future Pope Pius II, while still a youthful secretary to a Cardinal, commented that Genoa was a "paradise for women."

Rubens visited Genoa, a wealthy financial and mercantile center, at least twice and clearly admired the city and its people. Their active lifestyles as bankers, merchants, ship owners, and military leaders would have reminded him of Antwerp, the economic and cultural center of the Southern Netherlands. By the time he made this portrait, Rubens had been in Italy six years. Trained in classical ideals and philosophy, he had travelled from Antwerp to Italy around 1600 to experience firsthand its artistic traditions, not only those coming from antiquity and the Renaissance, including the work of Raphael and Michelangelo, but also those being created by contemporary artists such as Caravaggio. The inspiration he gained from this multifaceted exposure profoundly affected his own style of painting and became the foundation for his future work.

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