Andrea Gastaldi
1826–1889 · Kingdom of Sardinia, Kingdom of Italy · Romanticism, Academic art
The story
Andrea Gastaldi was 27 when he arrived in Paris in May 1853, and he stayed for six years. He showed a sunset at the Salon that first spring and won an honourable mention at the Universal Exhibition of 1855. He learned from Thomas Couture, a leading teacher of painting in Paris, and from the history pictures of Paul Delaroche, and he married Léonie Lescuyer, a painter herself, who had trained with the animal painter Rosa Bonheur.
He was born in Turin in 1826 and began largely self-taught, before entering the city's academy of fine arts, the Albertina. He went on to teach painting there for about 30 years. Among his pupils was Giacomo Grosso, who became one of the most sought-after portrait painters in Turin.
His brother Lorenzo was Archbishop of Turin from 1871 to 1883. Andrea Gastaldi died in the city in January 1889, at the age of 62.
