Achille Cattaneo was born in Limbiate, near Milan, in 1872. He studied at the Brera Academy, where he was a pupil of Giuseppe Bertini, from whom he inherited a first romantic setting and a clear and clean chromatism. Later, he attended the studio of Emilio Gola, who instead introduced him to a post-impressionist painting, characterized by a fluid and fast brushstroke and an expressive chromatism, which he would adopt for his entire production. Achille Cattaneo adopts the same manner as the master Gola, but instead of using it for the execution of female and nude portraits, he specializes above all in landscape painting. In fact, in his production there are conspicuous views of Milan, Brianza, Bergamo, but also of Venice, a city he is very fond of. He frequented it especially in the 1920s, when he participated in three editions of the Biennale. Nicknamed the "painter of old Milan", he is the author of a vast production of views, in which the themes and motifs are often repetitive, as is the case, for example, with the Milanese views of the Navigli. His beginnings are linked, however, to the perspective of interiors which certainly links him to the tradition of perspective painting in early 19th century Milan. In fact, at the Lombard Nineteenth Century Exhibition of 1900, he presents the choir of the church of Sant'Antonio, while a little later are Tramonto, purchased by Senator Albertini, Interior of the sacristy of the church of San Fedele and the Ponte di Porta Vittoria, all preserved. in private Lombard collections. At the 1906 Milan Exhibition for the Simplon Tunnel, he presents a drawing of an Interior and an oil which always has an Interior as its subject, both dedicated to Milanese churches. After the First World War, Achille Catteneo resumed exhibiting at the Venice Biennale in 1924, with an Interior of the Church of Sant'Angelo, while the following year he held a personal exhibition at the Bottega di Poesia in Milan, in which he exhibited some works that they approach the plastic sensibility of the twentieth century and the return to order. At the 1926 Biennale he exhibited Interior of the Church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli, Palazzo della Ragione - Bergamo and Interior of the Church of Sant’Eustorgio - Milan. The canvas dedicated to the interior of the Cathedral of San Babila appears at the 1928 Biennale. He died in January 1931 in Milan, but his work Interior of the Certosa di Pavia was also exhibited at the Rome Quadrennial of the same year.