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Ambrogio Preda Ambrogio Preda, Milano 1839 - Davesco ( Lugano ) 1906 Oil on canvas Ambrogio Preda Ambrogio Preda, Milano 1839 - Davesco ( Lugano ) 1906. Ambrogio Preda (Milan, 1839 - Davesco, 1906) was born in Milan. Information about his youth is scarce, but it is known that he participated in the 1859 campaign together with his uncle Angelo Trezzini. He attended the Brera Academy from 1853 to 1858. From 1866 he settled in Davesco, moving rarely, which perhaps limited his artistic career. However, he participated in several exhibitions in Italy, receiving awards such as a medal at the Asti Artistic Industrial Exhibition in 1869 and the Mylius Prize in 1875. Preda was primarily a landscape painter, described as a "monogamous painter almost without infidelity" by Adriano Soldini. Despite economic problems, he sold his works to German tourists. He rarely painted portraits or genre scenes. His landscapes, often precise views of Lake Lugano and its surroundings, were populated by human figures such as peasants, washerwomen and ladies with parasols, and sometimes animals such as cows, goats and donkeys. While painting from life, Preda avoided banal verism and maintained interest in his works despite the repetition of subjects. He occasionally went to Campione, Lake Maggiore, Engadine, and Liguria, but never to Lake Como. Although some of his paintings depict Dutch landscapes, he probably never visited Holland and may have executed them from photographs. He was close friends with Luigi Monteverde of Ticino, with whom he spent a summer in 1888 on Monte Boglia. Monteverde, in an 1894 interview, recalled their harmonious coexistence, saying that painting had never divided them. Cm 19x35,5 | In 7.48x13.98