Portrait de Porzia Imperiale et sa fille

In the 1620s Van Dyck spent several years in Genoa, working for the rich merchant families who ran the republic, the Doria, the Spinola, the Imperiale, and painting them as they wished to be seen: tall, remote and expensively dressed. This is Porzia Imperiale, a Genoese noblewoman, with her young daughter Maria Francesca beside her. He was still in his 20s and already better than almost anyone alive at rendering silk, lace and the cool composure of people who had never had to ask for anything. The poise and full-length grandeur he worked out on Genoese sitters like her are what he would carry, a few years later, to the court of Charles I in England.