Édouard HOSTEIN
 (Pléhedel, 1804 – Paris, 1889)

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

 Oil on canvas
 Signed at the bottom
 25 x 39 cm

 Related work:
  
 Painting from the Salon de Lyon of 1844-45 under number 245 and entitled Vue prise à Tivoli (États Romains) with the following comments: We can see the ruins of the palace of Mécène, and at the top the villa d'Este.
 Édouard Hostein is one of the very best landscapers of the mid-19th century.

 Without a known master, he devoted himself to studies from nature, and began by specializing in lithography, collaborating in particular with Baron Taylor on views of Auvergne, Normandy and the Paris region. From then on, a traveling artist, he stayed in the Ardennes, Alsace and Germany in the second half of the 1830s, before quickly discovering Italy. On his return, he settled quite permanently in Dauphiné and in particular the Lyon region, making occasional stays in the Paris region, Nantes or Normandy (in particular around 1850).

 At the end of the 1850s, due to his wife's poor health, he stopped exhibiting at the Salon and made regular trips to Toulon, where he settled permanently in 1862; he became a member of the Académie du Var in 1877.

 Hostein is a "classical" painter, attentive to details and atmospheric rendering, without neglecting the picturesque, with an excellent panoramic sense.

 The site of Tivoli and its waterfalls – close to Rome – have always inspired the artists who have passed through it. A panoramic and grandiose viewpoint of the site with the spectacular waterfalls of the Aniene along the cliffs, the palace, the ruins of which are visible in our painting, was built there shortly before our era by a patron of the Arts and close to the Emperor Augustus, the powerful Maecenas.