Franz Angelo Rottonara

After attending the design school in Urtijëi, Val Gardena, Rottonara studied under the master Karl Theodor von Piloty at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and then Ferdinand Laufberger at the University of Applied Arts in Wien. In his village Corvara he worked as a facade painter (Croce Bianca Hotel, San Leonardo in Badia) and as a portraitist. In Vienna he specialised in largescale decorative paintings and set design, first working under, and then in partnership with, court theatre painter Jan Kautsky. As a studio, Kautsky’s Söhne & Rottonara produced backdrops for theatres across Europe and America. In 1897, the German emperor nominated him as a royal warrant of appointment to the royal court of Prussia. He died in Vienna in 1938.