Peter Paul Rubens. Giovan Carlo Doria on Horseback

La Tosio Martinengo Art Gallery hosts an absolute masterpiece of Baroque painting: the portrait of Giovan Carlo Doria on horseback by Peter Paul Rubens, from the Royal Museums of Genoa. This important initiative, by Gianluca Zanelli e Marie Luce Repetto, is realised in collaboration with Spinola Palace and is part of the PTM OUT AND RETURN, through which the Fondazione Brescia Musei transforms every loan into an opportunity for cultural enrichment, welcoming works of extraordinary value from international museum institutions.

The painting, executed around 1607, portrays Giovan Carlo Doria, a prominent member of the Genoese aristocracy, known for his role as a patron and for his relationships with the leading artists of the time. Rubens, at the height of his Italian experience, renders an image of power and authority, dominated by a dynamic composition: the nobleman in armour, on horseback, is accompanied by a dog, symbol of loyalty and nobility, in an atmosphere full of energy and theatricality. The opera celebrates ambition, social status and authority, enhancing the figure of the client through the masterful use of colour, light and movement.

An unmissable stop to appreciate the intensity of the rubensian language, the taste of seventeenth-century aristocratic collecting and the continuous dialogue between the great italian collections.

^{Photo Credit:
Peter Paul Rubens, Equestrian Portrait of Giovan Carlo Doria, 1606, oil on canvas, 265 x 188 cm, Genoa, Palazzo Spinola - Galleria Nazionale della Liguria
Photo credits: ©MiC - National Museums of Genoa - Royal Palace}