A Genoese Noblewoman and Her Son

In the 1620s Genoa was a banking republic rich enough to lend to the kings of Spain, and its ruling families wanted portraits that showed it. Van Dyck spent about six years working among them, still in his twenties, and this mother and son come from that stretch. She sits bolt upright in a high-backed chair in the stiff black silk that Genoese patricians borrowed from the Spanish court, a gold medallion at her chest and a broad band of pearls in her hair. Her small son stands at her knee, his hand in hers. We no longer know who they were. The formality is the point, and the boy's grip and the slight tilt of the woman's glance are the only warm notes Van Dyck allowed himself against all that black.