DM 253. The pulpit in the Duomo Cathedral in Milan. A priest is preaching in the south pulpit, people standing or sitting below to left. Statues of cardinals and saints placed on the base of the pulpit. Signed and dated. Decorated mount. Luigi Bisi, who was from Lombardy (then territory of the Austrian Empire), specialised in painting interiors and exteriors of churches, and especially Milan Cathedral. This watercolour likely came from one of the six volumes of drawings and watercolours housed in the six large drawers at the base of a bookcase presented by the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria to Queen Victoria in 1851. There is evidence on the back of the watercolour that it was once pasted into an album. The bookcase, made of carved oak, was on display in one of the four furnished rooms in the Austrian section of the Great Exhibition of 1851 and was considered one of the two most important Gothic Revival pieces of furniture in the exhibition (along with a cabinet designed by A.W. Pugin). The bookcase was initially housed in Prince Albert's Organ Room in Buckingham Palace, but later left the Royal Collection when King George V gave it to the Department of Forestry at the University of Edinburgh. The bookcase is now at the V&A (museum number W.12-1967).