Eduardo Sívori

Born to Genoese immigrants in Buenos Aires, Sívori had harbored artistic leanings during childhood that, for family reasons, went unfulfilled.

Sívori earned recognition for his Dolce far niente ("Sweet Do Nothing"), for which he was awarded a gold medal at the 1880 Continental Art Salon of Buenos Aires.

He returned to Paris in 1882, eventually earning an apprenticeship in the prestigious Jean Paul Laurens atelier, following which he created El despertar de la criada ("Waking of the Servant"), perhaps his best remembered work.

Sívori thereafter focused his efforts on commercial art, creating portraits and landscapes for clients, among the best-known of which was local stockbreeder Godofredo Daireaux's in 1903.

These relationships helped result in the designation of his guild as an official entity within the National Academy of Fine Arts in 1905, of which he was named president in 1910.