Ritratto of Maria Scala Branca

The Countess Maria Scala Branca (1853-1925), a native of Alessandria, daughter of a lawyer, of a wealthy family and very prominent in the city (among its members, two ministers and high army officials) married at the age of twenty Stefano Branca, industrial producer of the famous bitter. She has three children: of these, Dolores, who died before her, is herself a benefactor of the Ospedale Maggiore. As a very young widow she managed the company, until she could entrusted the management to her son Dino, demonstrating entrepreneurial skills. Finally free from work commitments, she divides his life between Milan and Baveno (Verbania) where she owns a splendid villa. She is not a direct benefactor of the hospital: it is her son Dino who, in her memory, gives the Ca 'Granda 50,000 lire, certain of interpreting her will. To respect the desire of Dino Branca, who in a letter asks that the assignment for the mother portrait not be entrusted to a twentieth-century painter, Mario Ornati is commissioned to execute, which enthusiastically affirms that he would do "a work worthy of the Benefatrix ". The painter inserted the figure of the noblewoman in a scenographic composition that he often resorted in the portraits of those years.