Emilio Longoni was born in 1859.

Longoni's style began to develop increasingly in the direction of Divisionism around 1890. Indeed, he is one of the earliest representatives of this new style.


Longoni subsequently turned his focus primarily to landscape painting, which he reshaped in a poetic, almost dematerialised manner.


Ignazio Grün, who came from a Hungarian industrialist family, was one of the young artist’s earliest patrons and collectors. He did not only have himself portrayed by Longoni: he also commissioned portraits of his wife Maddalena Monge Grün (catalogue raisonné no. 119) and his two children Giulio and Tonino (catalogue raisonné no. 135). The portraits of Ignazio and Maddalena are conceived as an imposing pair in upright format, whereas the portrait of a child takes an oval, transversal form. Green’s passion for music is evident in the violin and bow he is holding in his hands. In fact, he was the first amateur violinist in the orchestra at the Teatro della Scala in Milan.


Longoni was often a guest at the Grün family’s estate in Locate Triulzi and was a friend of the family.

Emilio Longoni passed away in 1933.