Portrait of Cardinal Domenico Rivarola
Sir Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of Cardinal Domenico Rivarola, ca. 1623-1624, oil on canvas, Museum Purchase: Funds provided by the Swigert Foundation and private donors, public domain, 1999.37
This work is not currently on view.
- Title
Portrait of Cardinal Domenico Rivarola
- Artist
Anthony van Dyck (Flemish, active England and Italy, 1599-1641)
- Date
ca. 1623-1624
- Medium
oil on canvas
- Dimensions (H x W x D)
40 5/8 in x 31 1/2 in
- Inscriptions & Markings
inscription: "All 'Ill. mo. Reverent. Mo. Sig. Re. Card. Le. Rivarola"
- Collection Area
European Art
- Category
Paintings
- Object Type
painting
- Culture
Flemish
- Credit Line
Museum Purchase: Funds provided by the Swigert Foundation and private donors
- Accession Number
1999.37
- Copyright
public domain
- Terms
Van Dyck trained in Antwerp with the great Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens. In the 1620s he traveled to England and to Italy where he painted Cardinal Domenico Rivarola. When he returned to London in 1632, he was appointed principal painter to King Charles I. This probing work dates to the artist's early years, before the establishment of his workshop, and demonstrates his gift for revealing the essence of a sitter's character.
Domenico Rivarola (1575–1627) entered the service of the church in his native Genoa. Encountering the resistance of local church authorities, he moved to Rome where he won a reputation as a skillful politician. He enjoyed a meteoric career as a valued papal emissary and was appointed cardinal in 1611. This is the primary version of two nearly identical portraits that Van Dyck painted: one for Rivarola in Rome, the other for his family in Genoa.
