Luigia Cattaneo-Gentile

In 1622 Anthony van Dyck was in his early twenties and living in Genoa, where the Flemish newcomer had quickly become the portraitist the local aristocracy wanted. He painted their noblewomen full-length and life-size, tall and composed in dark silk against columns and red drapery, and much of the grand manner of later European portraiture grows out of these Genoese years. Who exactly this woman is stayed uncertain for a long time. Bought from the Durazzo family in 1890, she was assumed to be a marchesa of that house, and only in 1986 did a Van Dyck specialist identify her as Luigia Cattaneo-Gentile. Her lace collar and cuffs are painted with the quick confidence that made him famous.