Giuseppe Bernasconi was born in 1778 (other sources give the date as 1796) in Saint Petersburg, in the family of
Antonio Bernasconi, who had come to work as a stuccoist in the Russian capital from
Castel San Pietro, a settlement near
Lugano in Switzerland’s Italian-speaking
Ticino canton. The area, and the
Bernasconi family in particular, had produced numerous artists and architects, active across Europe, in England, Spain, Italy and Germany, as well as several distant cousins who had also come to work in Russia. Bernasconi trained in
Italy and came to the Russian capital Saint Petersburg in 1820, where he was engaged to redorate the interiors of the
Winter Palace after damages caused in a fire. He executed the work in a new, more rigorous, classical style than before. In 1825, having impressed Emperor
Alexander I, he was made decorative painter to the Imperial court, and granted the sum of 3,000 rubles. The accession of
Nicholas I saw marked reduction in expenditure, and Bernasconi was reduced to near poverty and compelled to seek official recognition from the Russian
Imperial Academy of Arts in order to earn a living as a drawing teacher. On presenting his portfolio to the Academy, with the support of his associate Stasov, he was made professor of interior decoration and painting in 1833, with an annual salary of 1,500 rubles. He died 18 March 1839 in Saint Petersburg. Bernasconi never married, and was buried by his friend Andrea Staffieri of
Bioggio. His books and drawings were then auctioned off. == Works ==