Paintings Drawings Sculptures 2016 - Jean Luc Baroni

Carlo Bossoli
Lugano 1815 - 1884 Turin
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A Rare View of the Caucasus with Cossacks by the Terek River
Tempera on canvas.
114.5 x 195.5 cm (45 1 /6 x 77 in.)
Provenance: Part of the collection of Bossoli’s work
formed by Luigi Besnati, Milan; thence by descent.
Although Swiss by birth, Carlo Bossoli grew up in
Odessa to where his family had emigrated in the 1820s.
From a young age, he worked as an assistant in a shop
selling books and engravings and there he learnt to
draw, by copying reproductions of the masters. Bossoli
came to the notice of Princess Elisabeth Vorontsova,
wife of the Regional Governor; quick to appreciate
the talents of this young autodidact she encouraged
him to enter the studio of Rinaldo Nannini, an Italian
artist, pupil to Alessandro Sanquirico (scenographer to
La Scala in Milan) who had also moved to Odessa and
been appointed as set designer for the Opera there. This
apprenticeship was to prove extremely influential for
Bossoli’s later work, in which he always demonstrated
a strong sense of composition and visual surprise.
Rapidly popular amongst the local aristocracy, he was
commissioned to produce a series of large views of
Odessa for Prince Michael Vorontsov. The prince was
so impressed with Bossoli’s work that he decided to
sponsor a year’s study in Italy. In 1839-40, the young
artist visited Naples and Rome and, even though he
did not ally himself with a particular school or studio,
he associated closely with the various English artists
he encountered and, under their influence, perfected
his watercolour technique. On returning to Russia,
he stayed in Alupka on the Vorontsov estate, but
four years later, he returned to Italy and settled there
permanently. He established his studio at first in Milan
but then, fleeing the uprising against the Austrians in
1853, he moved to Turin which then became the base
from which he travelled tirelessly throughout Europe.
What distinguished this artist from the beginning of
his career were landscapes and large perspective or
panoramic views. Assembled in series, reproduced
in lithographic prints, and published as albums, they
enjoyed enormous success. Thus in 1851 an album
of prints of his drawings brought together views of
Turin with a large panoramic view of the city. Then
the following year, he was commissioned to produce
a series of paintings with views of the railway between
Turin and Genoa, from which lithographs were to be
made.
Making use of his drawings and early works, he
assembled a series of 49 views of the Crimea which
were published in London in 1856 by Day & Son
with the title The beautiful scenery and Chief Places
of Interest throughout the Crimea and had a notable
success at the time when the Crimean War was raging.
This was a turning point in his career. He also produced
a series of illustrations of the war in Italy which were
made into 40 colour lithographs. Employed by Prince
Oddone (Eugenio Maria di Savoia duca di Monferrato),
Bossoli followed the Piedmontese army and executed
150 gouaches on the subject of the war, which resulted
in his being nominated pittore reale di storia to the
royal family on 9 May 1862.
Bossoli himself produced a large but incomplete
catalogue of his work: Catalogo dei dipinti eseguiti... in
Russia, Italia, Francia ed Inghilterra dal 1833 al 1880,
as well as a list of his clients and patrons (transcribed
by M. Farrazzi and conserved in Falconara Marittima).
As noted by the Turin scholar, Ada Peyrot, the
enormous success the painter achieved in his lifetime,
particularly in England and Italy, is clearly due to
his talent and also his genius in taking advantage of
lithography for the dissemination of his works, but it is
thanks too to the remarkable ease with which he was
able to enter noble society wherever he went. Thus
in October 1856, as evidence of his huge success in
England, the artist was received by Queen Victoria at
her favourite residence, Balmoral.
Bossoli’s views of the Crimea and the southern
provinces of the Russian empire are of particular
interest today because there are so few depictions of
these regions. They combine topographical accuracy
with great poetry, the fruit of Bossoli’s efforts to capture
the atmosphere of this wild and mountainous land.
Tempera allows fluidity and a lightness of touch perfect
for rendering atmospheric effects, such as the hazy mist
which can be observed caught on the rugged outcrops
of this mountain range and in its virtuosity reminiscent
of Chinese landscape painting. At the same time, the
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