North Italian School, second half of the 17th Century

Portrait of a Lady with her daughter and a page,
oil on canvas, 144 x 196 cm, framed

A tentative attribution to Pier Francesco Cittadini (Milan 1616–1681 Bologna) has been suggested for the present painting. It can be compared to a work sold at Dorotheum, 15 October 2013, lot 516 of a Young man playing with a parrot in a gilded cage.

Cittadini was a pupil of Daniele Crespi and moved to Bologna before the age of twenty to study with Guido Reni, whose influence is evident in such early works as the Martyrdom of Saint Stephen, the Flagellation and the Christ crowned with Thorns in the church of Santo Stefano, Bologna. Cittadini travelled to Rome in the mid-1640s and came into contact with the French and Flemish artists living there. These international influences gave rise to an original artistic vocabulary aimed at the naturalistic depiction of reality in his paintings of still lifes, landscapes and portraits.