RUBENS, Peter Paul
(b. 1577, Siegen, d. 1640, Antwerpen)

Equestrian Portrait of Giancarlo Doria

c. 1606
Oil on canvas, 265 x 188 cm
Galleria Nazional della Liguria, Genoa

Explicitly Venetian are the two large equestrian portraits Rubens made in his Italian period. The Mannerist emotiveness of the Duke of Lerma and of Giancarlo Doria with their typical foreshortenings and flickering light, is unthinkable without Tintoretto, from whom the composition is also derived. Yet unlike him, Rubens gives a strong impression physical presence and vitality to his aristocratic sitters.