Paul Albert BESNARD

Albert Besnard is much less well known as a watercolourist than as a painter and muralist. The present sheet may be dated to the period of Besnard’s second stay in Rome, between 1913 and 1921, when he served as the director of the Académie de France at the Villa Medici. This view over the rooftops of Rome appears to be from the Villa Medici itself, looking due south. Prominent in the left background is the national monument dedicated to the first Italian King, Vittorio Emanuele II, which was constructed between 1885 and 1935.