A young family relaxing by a tree

Domenico Piola was an extremely prolific and inventive draftsman. His biographer, Carlo Giuseppe Ratti, wrote about the large number of drawings created by Piola, some of which were lost in a fire in the artist’s house, but many others survived in the studio and with private collectors (C.G. Ratti, Delle vite de’ pittori, scultori ed architetti genovesi, Genoa, 1797, p. 48). This pastoral composition is not preparatory for any of the artist’s known painted works, yet it presents strong affinities with a painting with the Family of Adam and Eve (Private Collection) that is considered a work of collaboration between Piola and his brother in law Stefano Camogli (see C. Manzitti, ‘Appunti in presa per un itinerario giovanile di Domencio Piola’, in Daniele Sanguinetti, Domenico Piola e la sua bottega. Approfondimenti sulle arti nel secondo Seicento Genovese, Genoa, 2019, p. 25, fig. 3).