The woman depicted is in the center of the canvas, her face of penetrating intensity shortened by three quarters and turned with a confident gaze to the observer. A red rose, on the side of the face, highlights the diaphanous complexion. The right hand rests on the basin of a basin of a Baroque fountain supported by a triton. The left hand, dropped to the side, holds a closed fan. The sumptuous robe that wraps the figure is part of a complex Spanish-style dress, the hair is pulled back and gathered in a chignon wrapped in a crown of diamonds and a bundle of black feathers. The woman is Caterina Balbi Durazzo painted by the twenty-five-year-old Van Dyck, capable of bringing out the essential qualities of the portrayed character, proving that she has already assimilated the lesson of Rubens, of which he was a pupil: the lady retains, together with elements of aristocratic distinction, a certain airy and youthful tenderness. The portrait entered the palace in 1689 and has never left the residence in via Balbi since.

This work of tragic grandeur exposes Christ on the cross against a livid sky, underlining the desolate solitude of the drama of his execution and death. A cold light strikes the naked body and the large baroque drape that wraps around his waist, twisting as if shaken by the wind. He is still alive, his suffering face, streaked with blood, is turned towards the sky. Blood also flows from the wounds of the wrists and feet. Flashes of light surround the head crowned with thorns. In the sky you can see the solar eclipse described by Luke in his Gospel. The rocky and bare landscape surrounding the cross, losing itself in the darkness of the background, expresses the dramatic dimension within which the painful emotionality of Christ is refracted. The painting was purchased by Carlo Felice in 1821. The attribution to the Flemish artist has never been discussed, on the contrary, some critics are convinced that it is the only surviving autograph crucifix executed in the Italian years of Van Dick.

San Lorenzo, one of the Genoese patron saints, is represented with great force of reality while giving alms to the poor, the cause of his sentence to die on the grill. On the left is Lorenzo, the young face barely emerges from the darkness that envelops the scene. The light hits him from behind, highlighting the broad red satin sleeve of the dalmatic, the open hand resting on the table, the delicate neck, the reddened ear, the halo. In front of the saint is a group of beggars: an old man with a white beard who grabs the chain of a censer, a woman standing with a stick and, next to it, a second figure brandishing a hanger, a little girl with folded hands looking at Lorenzo from below. Everyone wears humble clothes but they have attitudes and traits of human composure and dignity. Liturgical objects are placed on the table in the foreground. The light source, external to the visual field, is placed by the artist to the left of the observer: it strikes the figures violently, like a spotlight aimed in the dark, creating metallic flashes.

The young woman depicted is intent on reading an ancient book and stands out against a neutral yet deep, atmospheric background, without any setting detail if one excludes, on the right edge of the picture, the glimpse of a window, an allusion to the light source which therefore remains out of the visual field. The volume is on a table covered with a green cloth and the woman holds her left hand on her chin with an absorbed expression, while resting her elbow on the table. A purple velvet cloak with a blue cuff, fastened by a large pin on the right shoulder, leaves the wide sleeves of a white shirt and an orange robe uncovered. An improvised turban covers her head. The woman, who gathers in herself the qualities of the ancient sorceress, the gypsy, the young common woman, is the Sibyl Samia, as revealed by the inscription on the cut of the book that she holds with her hand on her right hip, one of the twelve that the church Western recognized as prophetesses of the coming of Christ, lived around 700 BC. on the Greek island of Samos.

Proserpina, daughter of Zeus and Demeter, picks flowers in a meadow with her companions in the plain of Nisa in Sicily. The son of Cronus, Pluto, suddenly appears: Eros with his arrows made him fall in love, pushing him to kidnap the girl and drag her with his chariot to the afterlife where he intends to marry her. In the center of the picture, Pluto grabs the young goddess by the waist who, trying to free herself from the mighty grip, raises her right arm. The kidnapper, wrapped in red and white drapes from which emerge the muscular torso and right leg, has a crown on his head and a thick beard. The girl is instead wrapped in a blue cloth and a light silk shirt that leaves her breasts almost completely uncovered. Both are carried by a golden chariot pulled by two horses, which seem to be about to sink into a fiery chasm on the far right of the painting. The scene takes place in a clearing and four girls are spectators, two seated in the foreground and two on the left under the branches of a tree.

The large canvas represents one of the crucial episodes of the myth of Perseus, son of Zeus and Danae, told in the fifth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses, in which he saves Andromeda, his wife. However, the woman had been promised to Phineus who, to avenge her refusal, bursts into the wedding banquet with a host of warriors. Perseus, represented here on the right, defends himself from aggression by exposing the head of the Gorgon Medusa, who petrifies enemies with her eyes. In front of him is Phineus who tries to protect himself with the shield. At his feet are some of his fallen followers and in the background the terrified guests who cover their eyes to escape the spell. The imposing composition by Luca Giordano, signed on the first step at the bottom left, is full of scenographic inventions and theatrical effects, such as the two columns in the center of the scene with a dark red cloth wrapping around them, useful for dividing the scene.

The unusual subject of Christ weeping by angels, although it does not appear in biblical texts, is part of the devotional tradition of the Pietà. Generally there are two angels and they support the body of Jesus, presenting it to the observer, or, as in this case, they leave it at the center of the composition, crying heartily. The scene is nocturnal, the place is the tomb of the Nazarene. Here the candlelight dominates the whole composition, striking with vigor the neck and chest of the angel on the right and flowing more softly on the abdomen of Jesus, fading and warming at the same time in the funds, with a natural rendering of both the anatomical details and the drapery in the foreground. The painting shows unmistakable signs of the style of Gerrit von Honthorst, who at the beginning of his career visited Rome, where he met the works of Italian masters and especially those of Caravaggio.

The contribution of Giovanni Luca Durazzo was decisive for the purchase of the building in via Balbi in 1679 by his brother Eugenio. Among the various positions in the service of the Republic, Giovanni Luca held for the second time in the two-year period 1669-1670 that of Genoese ambassador at the papal court. During that stay in Rome, most likely, the execution of the extraordinary painting by the Flemish painter, one of the major portrait painters of the Roman nobility in the second half of the seventeenth century, fell. The Genoese patrician wears a Venetian lace tie, a black jacket embellished with an elegant lace fringe and a wig of brown curls according to the dictates of late Louis XIV fashion. The penetrating vividness of the expression, the gaze that inclines to smile, the refined technique, make it one of the highest quality portraits in the collection of the Genoese museum.