Fausto Zonaro
Aboard the SS Bulgaria
Estimate
30,000 - 50,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Fausto Zonaro
Masi 1854–1929 Sanremo
Aboard the SS Bulgaria
signed lower right: F.Zonaro
oil on panel
unframed: 21 x 36.5 cm.; 8¼ x 14⅜ in.
framed: 45.8 x 60.7 cm.; 18 x 23⅞ in.
Executed in 1891.
With Galleria Ranzini, Milan, by October 1948.
E. Makzume, The Sultan's Italian Court Painter, Florence 2021, pp. 86 and 176, reproduced in colour pp. 86 and 176.
Milan, Galleria Ranzini, October 1948, no. 5.
Zonaro and his wife Elisa, a former student he had taught in Venice, first travelled to Constantinople together in 1891 to fulfil their artistic aspirations, inspired by the writings of Edmondo de Amicis and Théophile Gautier. It was a complete leap of faith by Zonaro: selling up what few items of furniture and possessions he owned in Venice, little did he know what fortune held in store, or that he would one day becoming court painter to Sultan Abdülhamid II. Elisa and Fausto sailed to Constantinople from Athens aboard the SS Bulgaria, a crossing which inspired the present work and also a related oil, Odalisque Between the East and the West.1
1 Makzume, Florence 2021, p. 87.
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