Alexander Rossi

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Alexander Mark Rossi was a successful British artist specializing in genre works who flourished in the late 19th century. He was born in 1841 on Corfu, the son of Dr Mark Rossi, an Italian who was one of the three judges presiding over the Ionian Islands during the time of British rule.

On a visit to Preston in 1866, he met and married Jane Gillow and remained in the United Kingdom thereafter. In the 1870s he moved to London.

Rossi exhibited 66 works at the Royal Academy between 1871 and 1903. Many of his paintings are of children and young adults, the models often members of his family. Perhaps his most well-known painting is Forbidden Books (1897).

After his first wife's death, he married Silvia Tassart in 1902.

Rossi died in London in 1916.

Forbidden Books (1897)

Image courtesy of Rehs Galleries, Inc., New York City