Lot 2256 Dα

Carlo Bossoli came from a family from Ticino that had moved to Odessa around 1820. He went to a school run by the Capuchin order, where he began to practise drawing in around 1826. After successfully selling four views of Odessa in 1833, he went into business for himself as a painter, specialising in vedutas and landscapes. His most important patron during these years was Prince Voroncov, who enabled him to travel to Italy in 1839, from whence he returned a year later. In view of his biography, it can be assumed that the present sheets were executed immediately before his departure for Italy. In 1843 the family finally left Odessa to return to Ticino via Constantinople, Malta and Naples. Carlo Bossoli himself settled in Milan in 1844. During the rest of his life, he undertook numerous journeys in search of pictorial motifs, which were often reproduced as lithographs and helped him to become widely known throughout Europe. Bossoli's vedute are now sought-after and highly prized collectors' items.