ALBERTO PASINI - BURSA MARKET

ALBERTO PASINI 1826-1899

Bursa Market

Signed, dated 1873

Oil on canvas

Rentualized

28 x 35 cm

ALBERTO PASINI 1826-1899

The artist is one of the most famous and important painters of the Orientalism movement. Alberto Pasini's Oriental scenes contain perfect color harmony and strong technical ability. The artist, who began his career as a lithographer and landscape painter, received his art education at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Parma. In 1851, he moved to Paris and entered the studio of Eugene Ciceri, where his works were exhibited for the first time at the Salon of 1853. The following year, he joined the studio of Theodore Chasseriau. His travels to Tehran, Egypt, Armenia and Türkiye resulted in numerous drawings and sketches. The 12 lithographs he made during this trip were published in Paris in 1859. The closeness he established with artists such as Eugene Fromentin, Jules Dupre and Theodore Rousseau during his Paris period guided Pasini in developing his technique. The French expedition to the Near East in 1855 directed his art completely towards Orientalism. Unlike most of his contemporaries who created his orientalist paintings in Paris studios based on secondary vision or stage designs, Alberto Pasini created his paintings during his numerous trips to the Middle East. Alberto Pasini returned to the Eastern Front in 1860, visiting Cairo, the Sinai Desert, Palestine, Lebanon and Athens. In 1867, he visited Istanbul at the invitation of Bouree, the Turkish ambassador to France and his close friend and customer. He received an order from Sultan Abdülaziz to paint four paintings for the Dolmabahçe Palace. The artist returned to Italy in 1870, settling in Cavoretto in the Piedmontese countryside near Turin. The 1870s and 1880s were the high point of the painter's career. In 1873 he travelled to Turkey, Asia Minor and Syria, and between 1879 and 1881 to Andalusia and Venice. In 1878, 16 of his paintings were exhibited at the Paris Exposition Universelle, where he won a gold medal.