He was born in Turin on April 18, 1880 into a bourgeois family. He attended the technical schools of Chivasso and entered the Albertina Academy in Turin in 1894. He made his debut as a painter at the Promoter in 1900 and the following year with the painting "Prayer" he won the gold medal at the Universal Exhibition in Livorno. At that time, he devoted himself mainly to landscape painting, but it was as a portraitist that he began to gain notoriety. In 1904, he obtained a gold medal at the Paris Salon and an invitation to go to Siam to decorate the Royal Palace in the capital. On his return, the drawing chair of the Accademia Albertina awaits him, of which he will then be named president.