Isola Bella in Lago Maggiore
This is my study of Sanford Giffords "Isola Bella in Lago Maggiore". He first visited the site in 1856 during his European travels and returned in 1868, where he spent days sketching and painting the Borromean Islands amid the Alps. His final, most refined version, was painted in 1871 and is now hanging in the The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. This work refines sketches from his 1868 trip, portraying the island's Baroque palace and terraced gardens against distant mountains under a hazy, golden evening sky. He described one ideal day there in his journal: "It was a perfect day, not too hot. I have come to the conclusion that this part of Maggiore is the finest of all the Italian Lakes."