Salvatore Valeri

Born in the small town of Nettuno near Rome, Salvatore Valeri studied painting at the Accademia di San Luca from 1870. His teacher was Cesare Maccari, a painter renowned for his religious scenes and lighter frescoes.

After finishing his studies Valeri left for Constantinople in 1880 where he opened a small workshop in the Sisli district, making a living by selling paintings to European travellers and giving private drawing lessons which enabled him to continue travelling around the country.

Thanks to the recommendation of Lord Dufferin, the British ambassador, Salvatore Valeri was invited to take part in an official painting exhibition organised under the patronage of Sultan Abdul Hamid II, who appreciated his work and subsequently entrusted him with the direction of the painting department of the newly founded School of Fine Arts, a position that the artist held from 1883 to 1915. He exhibited his works at the Istanbul Salons between 1901 and 1903.

Having become a court painter, Salvatore Valeri was employed by the Sultan to give drawing lessons to his sons and to paint numerous family portraits. However, he did not abandon his vocation as a landscape painter.

The First World War and the Armenian genocide put an end to his period in the East. Salvatore Valeri returned to Italy to protect his wife Marie Lekegian, of Armenian origin, and opened a private art school in his hometown, which he ran until his death in 1946. He gradually abandoned the orientalist subjects that had made him famous to paint the seascapes around Nettuno.