Giacomo Francia (manner of) - Madonna and Child with St. John 19th century oil on canvas 66 x 52 cm The painting takes up a devotional typology of Raphaelesque ancestry widespread in the Bolognese school of the early 16th century, reinterpreted through a language of 19th-century historicist taste. The composition, centred on the tender dialogue between the Virgin and Child, with the lateral presence of the St. John the Baptist, in fact recalls the manner of Giacomo Francia, heir to the tradition started by Francesco Francia and characterised by a soft, intimate and intimately devotional painting.The figure of the Madonna, with her sloping face and lowered eyes, shows that sentimental sweetness typical of Bolognese figurative culture of Raphaelesque derivation. The work presents a smooth pictorial drafting, dark and transparent tones and an atmospheric research that looks to the ancient tradition with a cultured and reinterpretative rather than philological intention. In fact, the compositional layout and the sentimental quality of the figures seem to evoke 16th-century Bolognese culture filtered through the revivalist taste of the 19th century, when the models of the Emilian Renaissance were frequently recovered for their elegant composure and intimist character.