Preziosi Amadeo (1816 – 1882) – Paris, Pont De Constantine – Watercolor – Located And Dated

Watercolor made on a double page, representing the Constantine footbridge built in Paris in 1837, and destroyed in 1872 to be replaced by the Sully bridge.
The scene offers an impressive panorama of Parisian life, both in its monuments (we recognize Notre-Dame and the Dôme des Invalides) and in its inhabitants: the foreground is occupied by a group of passers-by. A woman wearing a pink crinoline dress stands in the center. Several men wear top hats. We can see several sailing boats on the Seine.
The scene is located and dated by the painter's hand at the bottom right.
The work is in very good condition. It is placed under glass, in a beautiful modern frame.
On its back, it bears the label of a Geneva gallery which attests to the identity of the artist.
This watercolour was part of a travel album made by Preziosi between May and June 1865, containing views of Corfu, Venice, Lake Como, Chiavenna, Chur, Lausanne, Geneva, Versailles and Paris. This album was sold at Christie's in Paris in 2009 (see urlr.me/DyGJnE and https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-5220385).

The artist
Amadeo Preziosi was born in 1816, into an old Maltese family. He arrived in France in the 1840s and entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris before embarking for Istanbul where he spent most of his life, while continuing to travel extensively. From the 1850s onwards, he acquired a solid reputation both among the Ottomans and among European travellers passing through Istanbul: Princess Eugenie, the Prince of Wales and Carol I of Romania were among his clients. Some of his watercolours were also lithographed and illustrated in various European newspapers (Le Monde illustré, The illustrated London News). He published two albums, Stamboul, souvenirs d'Orient and Souvenirs du Caire, considered iconic of orientalism.
His many travels gave Preziosi the opportunity to create travel albums. The watercolour offered here belongs to the second of his notebooks.
Preziosi's activity as a watercolourist suffered from the rise of photography. He gradually fell into oblivion, before dying in a hunting accident in 1882.

His work was rediscovered for the first time in 1935 in Bucharest during an exhibition, then in 1985 in London during an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum. A new exhibition was organized in Bucharest in 2003.
Several museums hold works by Preziosi: British Museum, Topkapi Museum and Museum of Painting and Sculpture in Istanbul, Museum of Fine Arts in Bucharest, Museum of Fine Arts of Canada, National Library of France…
Preziosi's works have also been the subject of numerous public sales, particularly in the United Kingdom.

Object visible at the gallery (07240). ​​​​​​​
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