Federico Zandomeneghi was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 Impressionist

Impressionism

Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...

 painter.

Zandomeneghi, whose father and grandfather were sculptors

Sculpture

Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...

, was born in Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

 and enrolled in the Venice Academy in 1856. A supporter of Garibaldi, his political beliefs necessitated a move to Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

 in 1860. There he met a number of the artists known as the Macchiaioli

Macchiaioli

The Macchiaioli were a group of Italian painters active in Tuscany in the second half of the nineteenth century, who, breaking with the antiquated conventions taught by the Italian academies of art, did much of their painting outdoors in order to capture natural light, shade, and colour...

, including Telemaco Signorini

Telemaco Signorini

Telemaco Signorini was an Italian artist who belonged to the group known as the Macchiaioli.He was born in the Santa Croce quarter of Florence, and showed an early inclination toward the study of literature, but with the encouragement of his father, Giovanni Signorini, a court painter for the...

, Giovanni Fattori

Giovanni Fattori

Giovanni Fattori was an Italian artist, one of the leaders of the group known as the Macchiaioli. He was initially a painter of historical themes and military subjects. In his middle years, inspired by the Barbizon school, he became one of the leading Italian plein-airists, painting landscapes,...

 and Giuseppe Abbati

Giuseppe Abbati

Giuseppe Abbati was an Italian artist who belonged to the group known as the Macchiaioli.Abbati was born in Naples and received early training in painting from his brother Vincenzo. He participated in Garibaldi's 1860 campaign, suffering the loss of his right eye at the Battle of Capua...

, and he joined them in painting landscapes outdoors. Painting outside of the studio, "en plein air

En plein air

En plein air is a French expression which means "in the open air", and is particularly used to describe the act of painting outdoors.Artists have long painted outdoors, but in the mid-19th century working in natural light became particularly important to the Barbizon school and Impressionism...

", was at that time an innovative approach, allowing for a new vividness and spontaneity in the rendering of light.

In 1874 Zandomeneghi went to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, where he was to spend the rest of his life. He quickly made the acquaintance of the Impressionists, who had just had their first group exhibition. Zandomeneghi, whose style of painting was similar to theirs, would participate in four of their later exhibitions, in 1879, 1880, 1881, and 1886. Like his close friend Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas[p] , born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist...

 he was primarily a figure painter, although Zandomeneghi's work was more sentimental in character than Degas'. He also admired the work of Mary Cassatt

Mary Cassatt

Mary Stevenson Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker. She lived much of her adult life in France, where she first befriended Edgar Degas and later exhibited among the Impressionists...

 and Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to...

, and his many paintings of women in their domestic routines follow their example.
To supplement the meager returns from the sale of his paintings, Zandomeneghi found work drawing illustrations for fashion magazines.

He took up working in pastels in the early 1890s, and became especially adept in this medium. At about this same time his reputation and his fortunes were enhanced when the art dealer Durand-Ruel showed Zandomeneghi's work in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. From then on he enjoyed continuing modest success until his death in Paris in 1917.