DOMENICO PIOLA (Genoa, 1627 - 1703) Allegorical Figure (Diana) Oil on canvas, 120X100 cm Provenance: Genoa, private collection The spear, diadem and lunar globe connote the figure of the goddess Diana, here illustrated according to a peculiar interpretation. This iconographic complexity, however, is often found in allegorical depictions by the artist, who was aware that he boasted a protean literary knowledge to be modelled according to his own illustrative needs and the demands of his patrons. The success of this image is on the other hand testified by a copy that transited the Genoese market some ten years ago, suggesting an influential provenance. This aspect is also confirmed by the quality of the painting which, datable to the 1880s, proves to be an unprecedented and valuable testimony of Domenico's mature activity, in which he best expresses his Baroque temperament and, quoting Ratti, his 'manner of great strength'. In our case, we can also perceive a reinterpretation of Emilian art, suggesting a date of execution after his stay in Parma between 1684 and 1685, which toned down his all-Baroque dynamism on the examples of Correggio. In fact, these are the years in which the artist devoted himself to a fine modelling of the drafts, toning down the chiaroscuro, expressing a meditated drawing that heralds that classicism of a Roman matrix that he was to express by 1690 in the famous 'Athenaeum of the Arts' and the subsequent 'Alexander and the Family of Darius' destined for the collection of Niccolò Maria Pallavicini. We thank Camillo Manzitti for the attribution. Reference bibliography: R. Soprani and C. G. Ratti, Vite de' pittori, scultori ed architetti Genovesi, vol. I, Genoa 1769 (1797), ad vocem F. Alizeri, Guida Artistica per la Città di Genova, Genoa 1847, ad vocem D. Sanguineti, Domenico Piola e i pittori della sua casa, Soncino 2004, ad vocem D. Sanguineti, Domenico Piola (1628 - 1703). Percorsi di pittura barocca, Genoa 2018, ad vocem