Portrait of Carlo Doria on Horseback

Portrait of Carlo Doria on Horseback
Artist: Rubens
Oil painting on canvas; Size: 265x188cm; Galleria Nazionale della Liguria, Genoa.

In 1606, during his stay in Genoa, Rubens painted the portrait painting of the nobleman Carlo Doria, who had just received the news that he had been awarded the prestigious Order of Santiago by Philip III of Spain. The genre of the equestrian portrait derived from those of the Roman emperors and was generally reserved for sovereigns; in this case it was adopted to underline the aristocrat's membership of an order of knights.
He is wearing the typical dress of the stag hunt, with puffed and decorated pants and boots of pale leather, his arms protected by long brassards and a tall hat with a wide brim on his head, a fashion that was taking hold in Italy in those years. The red insignia of the order stand out on the corselet of burnished steel. The eagle is the heraldic emblem of the family while the flying storks symbolize his gratitude for the coveted honor. The oak, flowering olive tree and ivy underline Doria's virtues: courage, noble-mindedness and loyalty. The work proved a great success in Genoa and so pleased the prince of Hesse in 1941 that he requested it for Hitler, in spite of the ban on export already imposed by the Italian State. The opposition shown by the minister Giuseppe Bottai, forced to agree to the request for political motives, made it possible for Rodolfo Siviero, who played a leading role in the recovery of the Italian artistic heritage stolen during the Second World War, to get the work back in 1948.