Rosa Gianca

I have these white roses in my garden grown forty years ago from a single cutting taken from a rose bush by a man in the village nearby. With its dark glossy leaves and pale cream flowers it puts on a show during the spring without weakening to disease like most roses do. I was proudly told by the locals that the rose was an antique variety and a native rose from the area. Here near Genova when speaking in the Genovese dialect it called Rosa Gianca which simply means white rose.
During the spring I noticed the same variety of rose growing in most gardens out and about and I discovered after painting it that it had been created in the early 1900’s in France and was then diffused in most of Europe with the French name of Albèric Barbier!