Portrait of a Man in Armour with a Red Scarf

In the spring of 1625 a Franco-Savoyard army of some 30,000 men was in the territory of the Republic of Genoa and pressing on the city itself. A Spanish fleet reached the harbour at the end of April and the siege eventually broke. Van Dyck spent those years in Italy, working mostly for Genoese families, and Dresden dates this half-length to about 1625 to 1627.

No record says who the man is. The armour is blackened and polished, the red sash across it marks rank, and nothing in the picture carries a name or a coat of arms. Armour in a portrait of these years is not proof of a military career either, since a sitter could be painted in it for the bearing it gave him.

The canvas measures 90 by 70 centimetres. It had entered the gallery of the Saxon electors by the 18th century and appears in the Dresden catalogue of 1765.