He initially painted in a realistic style, but this changed after traveling to Paris in 1870, where he worked in the studios of Jean-Léon Gérôme and befriended Giuseppe De Nittis.

Back in Turin, he continued to paint genre scenes, mainly of laborers in folkloric dress.

[1] Although sometimes referred to as the "Italian Meissonier, some later critics called him a Flemish Piedmontese, reflecting his ardent adhesion to realism in his animal paintings.

(1875, found in Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna of Turin); Ogni occasione è buona (1878); and Il pittore e la modella - In cerca del soggetto (1882, also in the Museo Borgogna).

[2] At the Exhibition of Turin, in 1880, he displayed: After the rappresentazione; A naturalist; A painter in his studio; and The Judgement of Paris.