Lot 28: Pier Francesco Piola Genoa? 1565 - 1600 , The madonna and child with a rosary oil on canvas

oil on canvas

measurements 38 1/2 by 30 1/4 in. alternate measurements 97.8 by 76.8 cm.

Although recorded as a pupil of Sofonisba Anguissola, who spent some years in Genoa, as well as aware of the work that Perino del Vaga painted there, Piola was most heavily influenced by Luca Cambiaso, the most important native Genoese artist of his generation. This is clearly evident in the present work, with its monumental depiction of the Virgin and Child, which betrays a clear awareness of Cambiaso's half length Madonnas (see for example, the Madonna and Child with the Infant Baptist in a private collection or the Madonna and Child with the Magdalen in the Palazzo Bianco, Genoa; cf. La Pittura a Genova e in Liguria, Genoa 1987, vol. I, pp. 202-203, figs. 189-190).