Domenico Piola was Genoa’s leading 17th-century painter, and a prolific draftsman and printmaker, but most of his church and palace decorations were destroyed in 1684 when a French bombardment decimated the city. This elaborate, worked-up composition, full of undulating movement and strong lighting effects, may be a study for one such commission. In it, the Virgin gently lifts the newborn Jesus towards a hovering group of adoring putti playing music, while Joseph kneels piously nearby and two donkeys bray in unison with the heavenly host. The tender domesticity of the scene recalls similar compositions by Parmigianino and other Parmese artists, whose style was brought to Genoa through the work of Gregorio de’ Ferrari, who married Piola’s daughter in 1674.