Portrait of the Goldsmith Pucci with his Son

By 1624 Anthony van Dyck was the portraitist Genoa's great banking families competed for. Barely 25 and newly arrived from Antwerp, he painted the city's Brignole and Spinola aristocrats full-length and larger than life, turning the portrait into pure status. This sitter is a different sort of Genoese. He is Giacomo Pucci, a working goldsmith, shown here with his son Alberto, a craftsman and a tradesman rather than a nobleman with a title. The commission tells you that Van Dyck's growing name in Italy reached beyond the palaces to the men who supplied them, and that a jeweller could now afford to be recorded by the same hand as his aristocratic customers.