One of the last exponents of the 18th Century tradition of view painting, Giuseppe Bernardino Bison received his artistic training in the Venetian studio of Anton Maria Zanetti. Before he settled in Trieste in around 1800, he worked as a decorative fresco painter in a number of palaces and villas in the various towns of the Veneto. These included a series of frescoes in the Palazzo Manzoni in Padua, executed around 1790 and followed by other decorative projects for the Villa Tironi and Lancenigo, the Villa Spineda at Breda di Piave and the Casino Soderini in Treviso. Among Bison’s more important works after moving to Trieste are his decorations for the Palazzo Carciotti, completed in around 1805, and the Palazzo della Vecchia Borsa, executed three years later. In 1831, Bison moved to Milan, where he was established for the remainder of his career. Here he also worked as a scenographer, producing stage designs for the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, among others.

Bison was a virtuoso draughtsman, and while his earliest works show the influence of Giambattista Tiepolo, his later drawings tend towards Neoclassicism. His preferred medium was pen and ink, often executed with boldy-applied washes, although some watercolours and a small group of chalk drawings are known. A separate body of work, for which he was greatly admired, were landscapes executed in gouache or bodycolour, the finest of which were in all likelihood intended as independent, finished works of art made for sale to collectors. For at least a century, such pictures had been much in demand from artists of the Veneto.  Marco Ricci’s magnificent works in tempera encouraged the Grand Tour taste for vedute, both real and imagined, and Bison and his near contemporary Giacomo Guardi followed his example. 

The grand scale and romantic atmosphere of this fine gouache reflect Bison’s work as a set designer.  Whilst being highly decorative, the view also conveys a dream-like quality.  The milky colours of the gouache medium are ideally suited to this form of capriccio, the contrast between the light-filled sky and the darker foreground creating both depth of field and range of mood.  This beautifully executed and very well preserved painting is an excellent example, on a large scale, of Bison’s work as a much-vaunted painter of capricci and vedute ideale.