Édouard HOSTEIN (1804–1889) - Tivoli view of the Maecenas Palace

Édouard HOSTEIN
(Pléhedel, 1804 - Paris, 1889)

Tivoli: view of the ruins of the Maecenas Palace and the waterfalls

Oil on canvas
Signed at the bottom
38 x 61 cm
1840

Related work:
- The painting of the Salon de Lyon of 1844-45, under No. 245, titled View taken in Tivoli (Roman States) with comments: We can see the ruins of the Maecenas Palace, and at the top the villa of Este

Edouard Hostein is one of the very good landscapers of the mid-nineteenth century.
With no known master, he devoted himself to studies from nature, and began by specializing in lithography, collaborating with Baron Taylor for views of Auvergne, Normandy and the Paris region. Now a traveling artist, he stays in the Ardennes, Alsace and Germany in the second half of the 1830s, before quickly discovering Italy. On his return, he settled fairly long in the Dauphiné and in particular the Lyon region, occasionally making trips to the Paris region, Nantes or Normandy (around 1850, in particular).
At the end of the 1850s, because of the precarious health of his wife, he stopped exhibiting at the Salon and made regular visits to Toulon, where he settled permanently in 1862; he became a member of the Var Academy in 1877.
Hostein is a "classical" painter, attentive to details and atmospheric rendering, without neglecting the picturesque, with an excellent panoramic sense.

The Tivoli site and its waterfalls – near Roma - have always inspired the artists who have passed there. Panoramic and grandiose point of view of the site with the spectacular Aniene waterfalls along the cliffs, the palace, whose ruins are visibles on our painting, was erected there shortly before our era by a patron of the Arts and nearby of the emperor Augustus, the powerful Maecenas.