Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)
Oil on canvas, cm 132 x 105 (52 inch by 41 1/2 inch)
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The portrait was probably reduced to make it an above door installation. It is identical in pose and setting to two other full-length portraits by Rubens The first is that of a woman who apparently has the same appearance but is dressed in black and with different hair ornaments, and is located at the Staatliche Kunsthalle in Karlsruhe (Lauts, Katalog, 1966, i, pp. 259–60 and ii, pl. on p. 292; Corpus Rubenianum, xix, No. 43; Christopher White, Peter Paul Rubens, 1987, p. 47 and col. pls 16 and 66). She was originally identified as the Marchioness Brigida Spinola Doria and now as Veronica Spinola Doria.
The second, dated 1606, is that of a woman with subtly different features, dressed in white and gold, Different only in hair ornaments and for a rich chain in gold and enamel instead of a simple thread of pearls worn by the model of the painting of the Faringdon Collection and found at Kingston Lacy (NT, Dorset; Corpus Rubenianum, No. 42; exh cat The Treasure Houses of Britain, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985-6, No. 496, with pl. col.). Known since the time of its acquisition by William Bankes in 1840 as a member of the Grimaldi family, she has been identified beyond reasonable doubt by Michael Jaffé as the Marchioness Caterina Grimaldi(image taken from the website https://www.ntprints.com/image/385098/-marchesa-caterina-grimaldi-by-sir-peter-paul-rubens.
The portrait of the Faringdon Collection seems not to have been painted after the marriage of the model, which took place in June 1608, as Rubens left Italy definitively in October of the same year. It should have been a portrait of the marriage to be put in the new house, while the original portrait, that of the Staatliche Kunsthalle, should have been in the family home. This means that the Rubens was thus using the same compositional formula for the third time and probably re-used a study of the face of the Marchioness Veronica that he had originally used for the portrait of the Staatliche Kunsthalle.
Freely translated text, image taken from the site https://buscot-park.com/gallery/25

Veronica Spinola married Gio Carlo Doria in June 1608, and was portrayed by Rubens in 1606. To date, the painting is kept at the National Gallery of Palazzo Spinola in Pellicceria.
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritratto_di_Giovanni_Carlo_Doria_a_cavallo per l’immagine.
Current location:
The Faringdon Collection, The National Trust, Buscot Park, Oxfordshire
https://buscot-park.com/
History of the painting:
Palazzo Grilleo Cattaneo, Genoa (1823; no identity); according to the sales catalog of 1899, Sir Francis Clare Ford (who inherited the collection of his father, Richard Ford, who died in 1899); sold to H IN Peto at the Christie’s auction on May 13, 1899, lot 57 (no identity); Bought by Lesser, and on his death claimed by Christie’s, February 10, 1912, Lot 90 (as Infanta Isabella); bought by Hahn; R H Ward, sold to Agnew, 19 29 as Brigida Spinola Doria), and then sold to Lord Faringdon, 1942.
Exhibits:
RA, Winter, Flemish Art, 1953, No. 174; Genoa, Palazzo Ducale, L’Età di Rubens, 2004.
from the website https://buscot-park.com/gallery/25 :
Repd. in E Michel, Rubens, 1899, ii, p. xii; L Burchard, ‘Genuesische Frauenbildnisse von Rubens’, Jahrbuch der Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, L, 1929, pp. 346–9, Pl. ii: Justus Müller Hofstede, ‘Bildnisse aus Rubens “Italienjahren”’, Jahrbuch der Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen in Baden-Württemberg, 1965, pp. 96, 143 n. 26 (as an autograph variant replica of the Karlsruhe picture); Jan Lauts, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe: Katalog Alte Meister bis 1800, 1966, p. 260; M Jaffé, Rubens and Italy, 1977, p. 77 (as an autograph repetition of the Kingston Lacy portrait, of Veronica Spinola Doria); Corpus Rubenianum: Part XIX: Portraits (by Frances Huemer), 1977, No. 44, pp. 173–4, fig 125 (as an autograph variant of the Karlsruhe picture, of Veronica Spinola Doria).
Vico San Luca, 1
16123 Genoa, Italy
c.f. 95023180102
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