Entrance to the Bazaar, Cairo

Alberto Pasini, a prolific painter who knew the greatest French Orientalist artists and whose works were highly popular with the collectors of his time, is now considered the most masterful of the Italian practitioners of the genre. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Parma. Then, after stays in Turin and Geneva, he went to Paris, where he joined the studio of Théodore Chassériau in 1854. The following year, he accompanied a secret mission to the Shah of Persia, Naser al-Din, a trip that marked his career. Pasini returned to France inspired by the landscapes of the East and the people he came into contact with and observed there. His sojourn left an indelible imprint on his works, which brilliantly render the atmosphere, light and monuments of the lands he had roamed.