Marchesa Maria Grimaldi, and Her Dwarf (c.1607, National Trust)

Marchesa Maria Grimaldi, and Her Dwarf
by Peter Paul Rubens
Date painted: c.1607
Oil on canvas, 241.5 x 139.5 cm
Collection: National Trust - Kingston Lacy Estate, Dorset
The sitter is elaborately dressed. Her gown is fronted, edged and sleeved with gold braiding, and the cuffs are small white ruffs.
Around her neck is a vast cartwheel layered ruff. It is a sumptuous full-length portrait, probably of the marchesa Maria Grimaldi, whose father, Carlo Grimaldi, put his villa at Sampadierna at the disposal of Rubens and his employer, Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga I of Mantua, in 1607. She is accompanied by a dwarf and her dog, who has the letters A. M. inscribed on its collar. The dwarf pulls aside a curtain to reveal a grand architectural setting composed of a colonnade of Corinthian pillars; the foremost pillar is entwined with flowers coming from the formal garden to the left.

About sitter read also http://www.buscot-park.com/gallery/28