Mavi Boncuk |
Alberto Pasini (Busseto, 3 September 1826 – Cavoretto, 15 December 1899) was an Italian painter. He is best known for depicting Orientalist subjects in a late-Romantic style. Born to Giuseppe and Adelaida Crotti Balestra, the last of five children. When his father died in 1828, his mother moved with her children to Parma, where she could count on the help of Alberto's uncle, the painter and miniaturist Antonio Pasini, a habitué of the Court circles and a collaborator of the famous typographer Bodoni. Very soon the young Pasini expressed his own vocation by enrolling at the age of seventeen in the Accademia di Belle Arti in Parma, in the section of landscape painting, and in the drawing section in 1848. Between 1850 and 1851 he was commissioned to produce the series of lithographs Thirty Views of Castles around Piacenza, Lunigiana and Parma. His draughtsmanship was noticed by the artist Paolo Toschi, a highly respected cultural figure, who encouraged the young Pasini to find a new life in Paris, as Parma in the years after the death of the Duchess Maria Luigia (1851) offered very few work opportunities. Thus, he joined the workshop of Charles and Eugène Ciceri. The new world which opened up to him offered many opportunities as he adhered to the so-called school of Barbizon.
In 1853 his lithograph of The Evening gained him admittance to the Paris Salon, and to the workshop of the famous Théodore Chassériau. The eruption of the Crimean War offered a new opportunity, when in February 1855, this latter painter recommended Pasini to replace him on the entourage of the French plenipotentiary minister Nicolas Prosper Bourée to Persia. Pasini accompanied him, returning through the north of Persia and Armenia before reaching the port of Trebizond. In subsequent trips, he visited Egypt, the Red Sea, Arabia, Istanbul, and Persia. Pasini parlayed his exposures during this trip into numerous highly detailed paintings of orientalist subjects. He left again for Istanbul in October 1867, summoned by the French Ambassador Bourée.
He returned to Turkey in 1876 to execute the four paintings commissioned by Sultan Abdul Aziz. He was about to return to Istanbul the next year, when his patron, the Sultan, died. In 1862 at Istanbul, he painted a canvas depicting a Victory by the Turks led by Sultan Abdul Mecid. 
A Mosque 1886
A mosque serves as the backdrop for this scene of village life, which features many figures outfitted in European-style military uniforms. Here, focusing on the lively mix of cultures, Pasini drew upon his extensive travels in the Middle East, which served as the source material for his paintings. His first opportunity to see this part of the world came in 1855, when he replaced his friend Théodore Chassériau as the official artist on a diplomatic mission to Persia.
Caffè con portici a Beicos
