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Shown from the knees up, a pale-skinned man wearing armor stands with his body facing our left in profile but he turns his head to look up and over our right shoulder in front of a distant, gray landscape in this vertical portrait painting. He looks into the distance with brown eyes under dark, arched eyebrows. Chestnut-brown hair flows around his ears and to the back of his neck. His straight nose is slightly hooked at the end, and his pink lips are closed under a wispy mustache. He has plump, lightly flushed cheeks, and sagging jowls lead to a double chin. Light from our left glints off the suit of armor that covers his arms and round belly. He stands with his left hand, closer to us, resting on the hilt of a sword hanging at his side so his elbow points toward us. His other hand rests on the top of a cane. A leather strap crosses his chest, and a thin layer of lace encircles his neck. A ruby-red sash is tied around his upper left arm in a bow and billows around and behind him. The landscape beyond has a dark blue sky with charcoal-gray clouds above a low, sunlit horizon. The painting is inscribed with dark capital letters in the upper right corner: “MDV RAPHAEL RACIVS. H REIP. TRIREMIVM PRAEFE.”

Sir Anthony van Dyck

The Prefect Raffaele Raggi, c. 1625

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 42

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 131 × 105.4 cm (51 9/16 × 41 1/2 in.)

framed: 156.21 × 132.08 × 8.89 cm (61 1/2 × 52 × 3 1/2 in.)

Credit Line

Widener Collection

Accession Number

1942.9.90

Artists / Makers

Sir Anthony van Dyck (artist) Flemish, 1599 - 1641

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Overview

With one hand resting on a baton and the other on the hilt of his sword, the sitter turns and looks down at the viewer, his haughty expression consistent with the proud swagger of his pose. As he stands before an evening sky and extensive landscape with a distant view of the bay of Genoa, light glints off his armor and deep-red sashes, draped gracefully across his body and tied to his arm, enhance his bravura. This portrait of a military leader possesses a dramatic flair that differs from the characteristic elegance of Anthony van Dyck's other Genoese sitters. As indicated by the coat of arms and the Latin inscription in the upper right quadrant, the sitter is Rafaelle Raggi, a prominent military figure and ancestor of the 16th-century Raggi family.

The Raggi, a distinguished Genoese family of bankers and merchants, presumably commissioned the portrait from Van Dyck as a memorial to this eminent individual's military prowess. Van Dyck had become the leading portraitist in Genoa since arriving there in the fall of 1621, and, around 1625, Tomasso Raggi was spearheading the defense of the Republic of Genoa against the Duchy of Savoy. Tomasso may have commissioned Van Dyck to portray his ancestor as a military commander to place his own military exploits in a broader historical perspective. Van Dyck probably based his visage on a living model rather than an ancestral portrait of the actual sitter.

Inscription

upper right above coat of arms: M D V / RAPHAEL RAGGIVS. HEIR[ONYMI] / REIP[VBLICAE]. TRIREMIVM / PRAEFECTVS[.] (1505 RAFFAELE RAGGIO [son of] GEROLAMO. PREFECT OF THE REPUBLIC'S TRIREMES)

Provenance

Probably Marchese Tomasso Raggi [c. 1597-1679], Rome, by 1664;[1] possibly Francesco Maria Balbi, Genoa, by 1780;[2] said to have been bought by Sir Walter Rockcliffe Farquahar, 3rd bt. [1810-1900], from the Balbi family in Genoa;[3] by inheritance to his son, Sir Walter Randolph Farquhar [1842-1901], London; (his sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 2 June 1894, no. 124);[4](Sedelmeyer Gallery, Paris); purchased 1894 by Peter A.B. Widener, Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania;[5] inheritance from Estate of Peter A.B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park; gift 1942 to NGA.

[1] Giovanni Pietro Bellori (attr.), Nota delli musei, librerie, gallerie et ornamenti di statue e pitture (...) di Roma, Rome, 1664: 47, lists: "Marchese Raggi. Palazzo sotto Campidoglio con gran numero di ritratti della famiglia Raggi, di mano di Antonio Van-Dych [sic] fatti con tutta la vivezza del colore, & diverse opere di altri Maestri." The "Marchese" mentioned here is presumably Tommaso Raggi (c. 1597-1679), a governor and senator of the Genoese Republic who, after having been accused of murder, was expelled from his home city in about 1627 and established himself in Rome, where he became "generale delle galere" to Pope Urban VIII in 1629, see Vittorio Spreti, Enciclopedia storico-nobiliare italiana - famiglie nobili e titolate viventi riconosciute dal R.o governo d'Italia..., 9 vols., Milan, 1928-1936: 5(1933-1935):582.

[2] Carlo Giuseppe Ratti, Instruzione di quanto può vedersi di più bello in Genova in pittura, scultura, ed architettura ecc... nuovamente ampliata e accresciuta, Genoa, 1780: 193, mentions a "Ritratto d'un Generale vestito d'armadura del Vandik" in the collection of Francesco Maria Balbi in Genoa. Although Raggi's name is not noted in the reference, and Van Dyck painted a number of portraits of men in armor during his stay in Genoa, indirect evidence links this portrait with that of Raffaele Raggi. (Ratti, for example, could have been referring to Van Dyck's painting A Man in Armour [now in the Cincinnati Art Museum, inv. no. 1927.393], which is known to have been in the Balbi Collection; see Christopher Brown, Hans Vlieghe, et al., Van Dyck 1599-1641, exh. cat., Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, and Royal Academy of Arts, London, Antwerp and London, 1999: 190-191, no. 43.)

It is not certain how or when the Gallery's painting came to the Balbi family, but paintings were often transferred through marriage. Federica Lamera and Giorgio Pigafetta, eds., Il Palazzo dell'Università di Genova. Il Collegio dei Gesuiti nella Strada dei Balbi, Genoa, 1987: 42-43, publish a Balbi family tree, which lists two marriages that could be of particular interest regarding this painting: Battina Balbi with Gio. Antonio Raggio and Bianca Balbi with Gio. Batta Raggio. It is possible that the Raggi paintings may have come into the possession of the Balbi family through one of these marriages. It does seem possible that the Gallery's painting was no longer in the possession of the Raggi family in 1780, as Ratti 1780, 231, does not mention a portrait of a general or a prefect among the other paintings by Van Dyck in the Palazzo Raggi in the Via del Campo, home of Giulio Raggi.

[3] Piero Boccardo, "Ritratti di collezionisti e committenti," in Susan Barnes, Piero Boccardo, et al., Van Dyck e Genova. Grande pittura e collezionismo, exh. cat. Palazzo Ducale, Genoa, 1997: 30, notes that after the end of the Genoese oligarchy and the Napoleonic wars, economic crises led to the sale of many paintings, particularly to collectors in England. An 1894 Widener inventory entry indicates that the painting was acquired from the Balbi family by the father of the previous owner, Sir Walter Randolph Farquhar ("A Gentleman in Armour from the Collection of an English nobleman whose father bought the painting from the Balby [sic] family of Genoa."), see P.A.B. Widener, "Inventory of Paintings," unpublished ms., National Gallery of Art, Gallery Archives, Washington, D.C., n.d. [1890s]: unpaginated, no. 140.

[4] In the 1894 sale of Farquhar's collection, the Van Dyck portrait is described as "A General in Armour, with arms," that is, in terms comparable to those used by Ratti to describe the portrait in the collection of Francesco Maria Balbi, see note 2 above. In an annotated copy of the sales catalogue (in the Knoedler Library British Sales microfiche), the name "Shepherd" and the numbers "73-10" appear in handwriting next to the description of lot number 124. "Shepherd" is probably a reference to the firm of Shepherd Brothers in London, which seems to have been active from the early 1890s to the early c. 1910. The fact that the name "Sedelmeyer" also appears several times in this annotated sales catalogue indicates that he was also actively buying at the Farquhar sale. Shepherd may have sold the painting directly to Sedelmeyer.

[5] Date and source of Widener's acquisition according to Widener records in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Balbi, Francesco Maria
Christie, Manson & Woods, Ltd.
Farquhar, 3rd Bt., Walter Rockcliffe, Sir
Farquhar, Walter Randolph, Sir
Raggi, Tomasso, Marchese
Sedelmeyer Gallery
Widener, Joseph E.

Exhibition History

2004: L'Età di Rubens. Dimore, committenti e collezionisti genovesi, Palazzo Ducale, Genoa, 2004, no. 82, repro.

Bibliography

1913: Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis, and Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Pictures in the collection of P. A. B. Widener at Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania: Early German, Dutch & Flemish Schools. Philadelphia, 1913: unpaginated, repro.

1923: Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1923: unpaginated, repro.

1931: Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1931: 114, repro.

1942: Works of Art from the Widener Collection. Foreword by David Finley and John Walker. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 7.

1948: Paintings and Sculpture from the Widener Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1948 (reprinted 1959): 74, repro.

1963: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 311, repro.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 47.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 40, repro.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 120, repro.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 263, no. 337, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 145, repro.

2004: Barnes, Susan J. Van Dyck: A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings. New Haven, 2004: II.55

2005: Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. Flemish Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2005: 57-61, color repro.

2020: Libby, Alexandra. “From Personal Treasures to Public Gifts: The Flemish Painting Collection at the National Gallery of Art.” In America and the Art of Flanders: Collecting Paintings by Rubens, Van Dyck, and their Circles, edited by Esmée Quodbach. The Frick Collection Studies in the History of Art Collecting in America 5. University Park, 2020: 134, 187 nt. 15-16.

2020: Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. Clouds, ice, and Bounty: The Lee and Juliet Folger Collection of Seventeenth-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2020: 20, fig. 3, 21, 23.