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A woman wearing a voluminous black dress with a wide, ruffled collar sits holding the hand of a young boy, who stands next to her, in this vertical portrait painting. The woman sits with her body in profile facing our left, and she looks in that direction. The boy stands at her feet, behind her legs to our left, looking out at us. Both have pale, peachy skin with rosy cheeks, dark blond hair, and brown eyes. The woman’s hair is pulled back and covered with pearls, and a few short tendrils curl around her face. Her long black dress has puffed, black-on-black brocade sleeves, and the skirt is cut with short, decorative slits. The skirt has a sheen where the light falls, suggesting it is silk. Her wide, stiff, ruffled collar is pleated into a figure-eight pattern around her neck, and a thick gold chain loops over one shoulder to the opposite hip. The sleeves have wide, ruffled cuffs, and she wears a gold ring with a slate-blue gemstone on the pinky finger of her right hand, closer to us. The boy’s small fingers wrap around the woman’s right hand, farther from us. His body faces us, and his other hand rests on his hip. His straight hair falls across his forehead and to his ears. His suit has a crimson-red, leafy pattern against gray satin, and the sleeves are also nickel gray. A wide, lace-trimmed collar rests along his shoulders. A brown and white dog frolics behind the boy, looking up at him with mouth open and tongue hanging out. The woman’s chair is framed by two stone columns streaked with rust red and taupe, and they extend off the top edge of the composition. A balustrade runs behind the boy along an opening beyond. The top corner of an entablature or lintel supported by columns is visible against a steel-gray, cloudy sky. A red drape flutters above the pair, along the top edge of the canvas, and the red and brown woven carpet below kicks up at the base of the column closer to us.
Read the visual description

A woman wearing a voluminous black dress with a wide, ruffled collar sits holding the hand of a young boy, who stands next to her, in this vertical portrait painting. The woman sits with her body in profile facing our left, and she looks in that direction. The boy stands at her feet, behind her legs to our left, looking out at us. Both have pale, peachy skin with rosy cheeks, dark blond hair, and brown eyes. The woman’s hair is pulled back and covered with pearls, and a few short tendrils curl around her face. Her long black dress has puffed, black-on-black brocade sleeves, and the skirt is cut with short, decorative slits. The skirt has a sheen where the light falls, suggesting it is silk. Her wide, stiff, ruffled collar is pleated into a figure-eight pattern around her neck, and a thick gold chain loops over one shoulder to the opposite hip. The sleeves have wide, ruffled cuffs, and she wears a gold ring with a slate-blue gemstone on the pinky finger of her right hand, closer to us. The boy’s small fingers wrap around the woman’s right hand, farther from us. His body faces us, and his other hand rests on his hip. His straight hair falls across his forehead and to his ears. His suit has a crimson-red, leafy pattern against gray satin, and the sleeves are also nickel gray. A wide, lace-trimmed collar rests along his shoulders. A brown and white dog frolics behind the boy, looking up at him with mouth open and tongue hanging out. The woman’s chair is framed by two stone columns streaked with rust red and taupe, and they extend off the top edge of the composition. A balustrade runs behind the boy along an opening beyond. The top corner of an entablature or lintel supported by columns is visible against a steel-gray, cloudy sky. A red drape flutters above the pair, along the top edge of the canvas, and the red and brown woven carpet below kicks up at the base of the column closer to us.

National Gallery of Art · Painting

A Genoese Noblewoman and Her Son

Sir Anthony van Dyck

Date
c. 1626
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 191.5 x 139.5 cm (75 3/8 x 54 15/16 in.) framed weight: 81.647 kg (180 lb.)
Classification
Painting
Accession number
1942.9.91
Credit line
Widener Collection
Time span
1601 to 1650
Department
CNE-B
Original NGA record Wikidata

Subjects and terms

  • painted surface
  • Baroque
  • Flemish
  • family
  • portrait
  • Flemish Paintings of the Seventeenth Century
  • Genoese noblewoman and her son
Provenance

Possibly Pier Francesco Grimaldi, Genoa, 1780;[1] acquired probably by 1787 by George Greville, 2nd earl of Brooke and Warwick [1746-1816], London and Warwick Castle;[2] by inheritance to his son, Henry Richard Greville, 3rd earl of Brooke and Warwick [1779-1853], Warwick Castle; by inheritance to his son, George Guy Greville, 4th earl of Brooke and Warwick [1818-1893], Warwick Castle; by inheritance to his son, Francis Richard Charles Guy Greville, 5th earl of Brooke and Warwick [1853-1924], Warwick Castle, until at least 1900. (E.M. Hodgkins)[3] on joint account with (M. Knoedler and Co., New York); sold 1909 to Peter A.B. Widener, Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; inheritance from Estate of Peter A.B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park; gift 1942 to NGA. [1] Carlo Giuseppe Ratti, _Instruzione di quanto può vedersi di più bello in Genova in pittura, scultura, ed architettura ecc... nuovamente ampliata e accresciuta_, Genoa, 1780: 134, lists two paintings in the collection of Pier Francesco Grimaldi as representing "Dama con un bimbo per mano," a description that could refer to NGA 1942.9.91. One of these two paintings is listed with a pendant of a man in armor ("Uomo in armatura"), now in South Brisbane, Queensland Art Gallery, listed in their catalogue as Marchese Filippo Spinola. Although Piero Boccardo, "Ritratti di Genovesi di Rubens e di van Dyck: contesto e identificazioni," in Susan J. Barnes and Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., eds., _Van Dyck 350_, Hanover and Leiden, 1994: 101 note 8, relates the description in Ratti to the National Gallery's double portrait, he thinks it is more probable that the male portrait is a pendant to _A Genoese Noblewoman with her Child_ from the Cleveland Museum of Art. For this painting, see Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., Susan J. Barnes, et al., _Anthony van Dyck_, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1990: no. 37, 178-179. [2] The painting was first recorded in this collection in 1801, as _Lady Brooke and Her Son_. However, David Buttery, "George Romney and the Second Earl of Warwick," _Apollo_ 124 (August 1986): 108, 109 note 36, argues that it must have been in the collection by 1787 since it served as a model for George Romney's painting of _Lady Warwick and Her Children_, which was painted in that year. The Earl may have acquired it as early as 1775. Buttery quotes a letter written in that year by Richard Cumberland that refers to Van Dyck paintings in the Earl's collection. It is also possible, however, that the painting was still in Genoa in 1780. See note 1. [3] Hodgkins may have acquired NGA 1942.9.91 from the Earl of Warwick, since he is known to have acquired _Margareta Snyders_, now in The Frick Collection (09.1.42, New York), from the Warwick collection. Both paintings were then handled by M. Knoedler and Co. _Margareta Snyders_ was sold to Henry Clay Frick in 1909, the same year that Widener bought _A Genoese Noblewoman and Her Son_. The reference to Hodgkins was supplied by the Getty Provenance Index.

NGA object ID 1230. Collection metadata is reproduced under CC0. This work is included because its NGA published-image record is marked open access; visitors should recheck the source record before substantial reuse.