François Diday

After completing his primary education, he chose not to attend college, deciding instead to learn German and take drawing lessons from Abraham-Louis-Théodore Constantin-Jetzeler (1782-1847).

He began his professional education in earnest at the Arts Society and took lessons from the landscape painters, Charles Joseph Auriol and Wolfgang-Adam Töpffer.

In 1821, he continued his education in Paris, where he worked at the studios of Antoine Gros then, in 1824, received a small scholarship from the Arts Society to study in Italy.

He soon developed a preference for painting mountainous landscapes in the Bernese Highlands, Savoy and around Lake Geneva.

In addition to his artistic activities, he served as an officer under General Guillaume Henri Dufour during the Neuchâtel Crisis, rising to the rank of Major, and was elected to the Conseil Municipal of Geneva in 1854.

Photo taken in 1859, from the collections of the Bibliothèque de Genève
Path from Grimsel to Handeck , 1855, now in the Valais Art Museum in Sion, Switzerland