Portrait of a gentleman with his dog,
oil on canvas, 135.5 x 113 cm, framed

The protagonist of the present painting is portrayed displaying a thoughtful gaze looking towards some place or object, which the viewer is not allowed to see. The young man, about twenty years old, is shown three quarter length and in profile; behind him is a wall embellished with a carmine red velvet drape and on the left it is possible to discern a landscape. The setting is completed by a dog with a proud look - an Italian Bracco with white and hazelnut brindled fur – and a pedestal on the right covered with a cloth of the same colouring as the drape fabric on the wall. The young man is lavishly dressed: he is wearing a pourpoint embroidered with golden threads, a black coat decorated with geometric embroidery and trousers of the same colour, a Genoese lace (called “rosone a fuselli”) and a sword which is fixed to his waist with a golden belt, on which his left hand is languidly resting. Highlighted by the colour contrast between the wall behind him and his clothes is the face, appearing simultaneously bright and melancholic.

This work’s high pictorial quality is particularly evident in the careful realisation of the pourpoint and the red velvet drape, whose delicate fringes glow with a golden brilliance. The artist’s ability to imitate the various surfaces by translating their tactile values ​​onto the canvas, and to carry out a fine psychological investigation with the brush, qualifies the author of this work.

At present it is uncertain who painted this portrait; for some time, the work was attributed to a Florentine painter of the beginning of the seventeenth century. However, this link has been generally rejected in favour of giving the portrait to a Genoese painter, or an artist who was active in Liguria during the first half of the seventeenth century. Obviously, the typical Genoese lace, which was often exported to other locations in Italy, cannot be understood as a definite indication for the geographical origin of this work. Rather, it is the type of portrait which allows us to understand where it may have been executed or at least where it was conceived.

The study of the Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck’s portraiture was decisive for the drafting of the Portrait of a gentleman with a dog. Like other Flemish painters, in 1621 van Dyck decided to embark on a traditional journey through Italy, remaining there for six years. He made several visits to Genoa, the most important of which were between November 1621 and February 1622, and between autumn 1625 and 1627. In Liguria, Anthony van Dyck worked mostly as a portraitist. His likenesses, usually large and full-length, are characterised by their majesty and the exact representation of his sitters. A prime example is the Portrait of a Genoese gentlewoman with her son (Washington, National Gallery of Art) dated about 1626, where the Flemish artist fuses noble grandeur with a more intimate familial atmosphere. Although the portrait in Washington depicts full-length figures, the composition and the arrangement of sitters within the space presents compelling affinities to the present painting. In a similar manner to the present painting, the protagonist is set against a wall that vertically intersects the scene, whilst an undefined landscape occupies the other half of the picture. A cloth placed at the top enriches the setting chromatically and bestows it with a touch of movement. The elegance and hieratic posture, the accurate reproduction of the embellishments and embroidery of clothing, as well as the liveliness of the individuals portrayed, makes van Dyck an irreplaceable maître à penser for the author of the present painting. Hence, the Portrait of a gentleman with a dog is attributable to an artist active in Genoa, who was able to study the Flemish painter’s portraiture; it could therefore possibly be dated to around 1630.