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During the course of the 14th century the French influence strengthens in Italian sculpture. It is apparent in the lovely series of figures in stone and wood by Nino Pisano, which might indeed be French were it not for the Italian simplification of the draperies. This is one of the striking features of his Madonna del Latte, which, despite the linear silhouette that owes so much to painting, is essentially plastic in its simple volumes.
On the basis of Vasari, this statue, originating from the church of Santa Maria della Spina, was regarded until the 1960s as the work of Nino Pisano. Nowadays, this group, the first portrayal in Italian art of the motif of the Virgin suckling the Christ Child, is considered on stylistic grounds to be the work of Andrea Pisano, Nino's father.
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