Owing to the quality of his painting, his highly original development, the similarity with the works of other artists close to him or with contemporaries, the Venetian Giacomo Favretto (1849-1887) is one of the most important masters of the Italian Nineteenth century. A true “innovator' of the Venetian school during the second half of the century, he both revived and modernised the unique aspects of great Veneto tradition – from Longhi to Tiepolo – that had been abandoned in the first half of the Nineteenth century in favour of paintings of history and landscape. In his short but intense career, Favretto was to become a hugely successful painter. He died prematurely in 1887, leaving unfinished on his easel Modern Stroll that might have represented a possible Venetian form of the most modern international trends although it was not until 1895 that the Biennale was to be founded in Venice.