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Benigno Bossi

1727 Arcisate – 1797 Parma

Benigno Bossi was initially taught by his father, Pietro Luigi Bossi, a stuccoist. In the early 1750s Benigno accompanied his father to Germany and underwent training there as a painter and stuccoist. After the death of his father in 1754 he was introduced to the art of engraving on the initiative of Anton Raphael Mengs, Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich and Charles Hutin in Dresden. Bossi returned to Italy at the outbreak of the Seven Years War in 1756, settling first in Milan and then in Parma, where he was appointed a professor at the Academy in 1766 and later worked as court painter to the house of Bourbon-Parma. Bossi is best known for his stucco works, however, of which there are outstanding examples in the Palazzo del Giordano and the Palazzo di Riserva in Parma, and for his extensive printed oeuvre. The artist was an accomplished master etcher and aquatintist whose printed works illustrate his deft and spirited style.