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!
Anna Dennis | Oil Painter 