Federico Zandomeneghi (1841–1917) was born in Venice on 2 June 1841 into a family of sculptors. His father Pietro and grandfather Luigi had carved the monument to Titian that still stands in the Frari. Federico chose colour instead of marble, and enrolled at the Venice Academy of Fine Arts in 1856.
The years that followed were restless. He left Venice in 1859 to avoid conscription into the Austrian army, and from 1862 spent several years in Florence among the Macchiaioli, the Italian painters who had broken with academic finish a decade before the French did. In 1874 he went to Paris, meaning to stay a few weeks. He never left.
In Paris he found the Impressionists at the beginning of their public life and exhibited alongside them four times, in 1879, 1880, 1881 and 1886. He became a close, famously difficult friend of Degas. Like Degas he was above all a painter of figures — women reading, dressing, sitting in parks — though his touch is warmer and his mood softer than his friend’s. For years he drew fashion illustrations to survive. Recognition in Italy came mostly after his death in Paris on 31 December 1917. His work now hangs in the Musée d’Orsay, the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome and the Art Institute of Chicago.