A pupil of Marchetti and Consoni in Rome, of Antonio Mancini and Filippo Palizzi in Naples and a close friend of Domenico Morelli, he was one of the most gifted epigones/interpreters of the Posillipo school.
He was the last artist from the school of Resina and a central figure in landscape painting in Naples after Giacinto Gigante, also for having introduced Neapolitan folklore as a constant subject of representation.
He was influenced by Mariano Fortuny, which he resolved in his picturesque vernacular and anecdotalism, increasingly available to mannered illustration in his later period.
He is a much-loved and appreciated artist also at an international level, author of both landscapes and historical and religious subjects, but above all of beautiful portraits.
Also famous are the seascapes animated by buxom bathers (with some mythological references), the Orientalist themes, but above all the popular scenes of Neapolitan folklore and the Neapolitan islands.