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Giovanni Boldini (1845 -1931)
Italian-French portrait painter

Born in Ferrara, Italy in 1845.  Like Sargent, he had an international career, working mainly in Paris, but also in England where he was  well known in London.  By the turn of the century Boldini had become the most sought after portrait painter in Paris, achieving such a success that his reputation equaled that of  Sargent's in London. He was renowned as a colorist and technician, and his works are considered very much Parisian. 

* * *

I believe Sargent first met Boldini in the summer of 1880 (Sargent was 24 and Boldini 38). John had traveled to Venice to meet his family and there he set up a studio. He very easily could have met him in Paris prior, or at the very least Sargent might have known of him. It would be in the early 80's that Boldini painted Sargent.

In 1885, after the Madame X scandal of the previous year, Sargent moved to London after being there a year he gave up his Paris Boulevard Berthier studio to Boldini who would become one of the best-loved portrait painter of Parisian high society. Their paths would cross quite a bit. They stayed in contact but it is not documented very well. I know for sure Boldini sketched him in 1902.

* * *

Giovanni Boldini was born in Ferrara  the eighth of thirteen children. He arrived in  Florence in 1862-65, where he came into contact members of the Barbizon school, the Macchiaioli (a group of artists opposed to the strict teachings of the Accademia -- pronounced "mah-key-ay-OH-li") worked to emphasize painterly immediacy and freshness -- (Other artists of that school included Silvestro Lega, Giovanni Fattori, Vito d'Ancona, and Giovanni (Nino) Costa). Principle among these early associations was Boldini's friendship with the influential thinker and art critic Diego Martelli who, himself, would helped mold and champion the ideas of French Impressionism in Italy.

From the earliest years of Boldini's career, he displayed a remarkable talent as a portrait painter, and during a trip to London in 1869  was able to obtain numerous commissions. He would carry this forward residing in London  on-and-off for the next five years. Boldini also produced landscape paintings, including a series of frescoes at the Villa 'La Falconiera', near Pistoia in 1870 at the age of 28. 

However gifted he might have been in these other areas, his talent and love was clearly for the art of portraiture. In 1872 he settled in Paris at the age of 30, taking a studio on the Place Pigalle. Beginning in '74 he exhibited frequently at the annual Salons (the year that Sargent arrived) and quickly rose to prominence in Parisian art circles. He enjoyed an exclusive contract with the eminent art  dealer Adolphe Goupil, and for him produced small, brightly colored 18th century costume pieces such as "Young Woman Writing" that were popular with his Parisian clientele. 

Boldini's public debut of '74 at the Salon de Mars with his bold, fluid style of painting soon proved immensely popular. He began to paint society portraits and quickly developed a reputation for his dazzling, elegant depictions of the fashionable women, executed with these bold, fluid  brushstrokes. 

Sem's Boldini and Ava Aastor

Here, Boldini is depicted in a caricature by Sem dancing with the wealthy socialite Ava Astor. 


Boldini
1910

He would paint portraits of other painters such as  James A. McNeill Whistler, John Singer Sargent, and  Paul-César Helleu along with Paul's wife. He became a close friend of Degas (Degas drew Boldini); and like Degas, he began to use pastel extensively in the 1880's. Boldini died in Paris in 1931.

Today there is a Boldini museum in his native Ferrara.  Among Boldini's better known works are "A Summer Stroll", "At the Piano", "After the Orgy", "Count Robert de Montesquiou ", "The dutchess of Marlborough", "the princess von Hohenlohe" and "Spring Flowers"

(P.806, Vol3)

 
“Master of Swish”
Time Magazine, April 3, 1933, p. 28-29

With her tongue ever so slightly in her check, Mrs. Chester Dale, collector and authority on French painting, helped organize four months ago an exhibition of the paintings of the late Alphonse Bouguereau, barroom decorator par excellence of the Gay Nineties. For all their technical slickness, the correct perspective for looking at a Bouguereau nude was always obtained through the bottom of a 16 oz. Beer glass. Critics in the chill light of a formal art gallery were not impressed with the “Back to Bouguereau” movement. Last week with a better artist and in a better cause (a loan exhibition at the Wildenstein Galleries for New York’s Child Welfare Committee), Maud Dale revived the work of one of M. Bouguereau’s contemporaries, the late Giovanni Boldini.

Giovanni Boldini (“Zanin” to intimates) was a society portraitist as artificial as any who ever stretched a lady’s fingers to tickle her vanity. Modernists excuse Zanin Boldini for a virtue denied most Academicians, an exuberance, vivacity and frank sensuousness that won him the title of “Master of Swish,” and made his huge canvases on view last week a series of gay explosions, brilliantly painted.

Born in Ferrara in 1842, he grew up to be a little fellow (half an inch too short for military service), with a mincing manner and a domelike forehead. He abhorred Bohemianism, was always perfectly frank in his love of rich food, fine clothes, beautiful women. His career took him first to Florence, then London, then Paris. Ever since the Salon of 1875 his steady succession of portraits and mistresses had been gaining fame but it was not until the turn of the century that Boldini entered his Grand Period. He was preeminently the artist of the Edwardian era, of the pompadour, the champagne supper and the ribbon-trimmed chemise.

The passing of the petticoat was the passing of Boldini’s art. He lived to be 88. Too purblind to paint, he could still drink champagne and chuck pretty young models under the chin. In 1929, aged 86, he suddenly married. At his wedding breakfast he made a little speech: “It is not my fault if I am so old, it’s something which has happened to me all at once.”

 

Boldini Exhibit
Wildenstein Galleries, New York
1933
Exhibition catalogue

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Sampling of works
by Boldini
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Alaide Banti 
1860-1870 
Oil on Wood 
23x37 cm


Diego Martelli
c. 1865


Giuseppe Abbati
1865


Vincenzo Cabianca
date? 


Inside with figure 
1866


Paesaggio Agreste
(Agreste Landscape)
1867


Ritratto Mary Donegan
1869


Signora con Fiori 
(Lady with Flowers)
1870 


The Letter 
1873 
Private collection 
Watercolor over pencil on paper attached at the edges on board 


The Hammock
c.1872 - 1874
 


Woman at a Piano 
c 1870's 
Private collection 
Oil on panel


The Conversation
1870's


Putting on her Dress
Christie’s, New York 
Oil on wood 
21.6 x 17.5 cm 
 


Young Woman Writing
Larin, Guilloux and Buffetaud, Paris
 


The Beauty Before The Mirror
Date?
Watercolor


Liseuse dans un Salon


The Red Umbrella
1872-1875 
 


The Laundry
1874
 
 
Crossing the Street
1875 


Young woman seated on the divano 
(Mondana that re-enters) 
1878 


Horses and Knights 
Oil on tablet   

John Singer Sargent
A Portrait of John Singer Sargent 
c. 1880-1884? 
 


In the Studio
Date?


Madame Leclanche
1881


La cantante mondana
(The Mondona Singer)
1884
 
 
The Piano paintings
before July 1886


Portrait of a Young Man
Date?


Madame Rejane (Gabrielle Rejane) 
c 1885 
Oil on canvas 


Ritratto 
Pastel on cardboard
(Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt?)

about 1880


Henri Rochefort


Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Date? 


Profile of Alaide Banti 
1885 
Oil on table 
 


Ferrara


Venice
Date?  


Cafe Scene 
c. 1887 
oil on panel 
30 1/2 x 39 (77.5 x 99.1 cm) inches 
Bequest of Whitney Warren Jr. in memory of Mrs. Adolph B. Spreckels 1988.10.5 


Signorina Concha de Ossa 
1888 
Pastel on prepared canvas


Portrait of Emiliana Concha de Ossa
c. 1888
Pastel 
 


Donna in nero che guarda il pastello della signora Emiliana Concha de Ossa
(Woman in black who watches the pastel of  . . .)
1888


Portrait of the Comte de Rasty
Date?
Watercolor
 


Il pittore Joaquin Araujo Ruano 
1889 


Afternoon Stroll 


Girl in a Black Hat 
1890


John Lewis Brown with wife and daughter
1890 


John Singer Sargent
1890


Testa di signora con capellino giallo (Il cappello giallo)
1890


Giovanetta Erraruiz 
1892
(daughter of 
Madame Josephina Alvear de Errazuriz)


Madame Josephina Alvear de Errazuriz 
1892 


Il maestro Emanuele Muzio sul podio
1892


Signora Bruna in Abito Da Sera
1892-1894


View of Venice
c. 1895


Edgar Degas
1895


Portrait of the Artist Ernest Ange Duez
1896 


Portrait of Whistler Asleep 
1897 
Drypoint 
19.8 x 29.8 cm (image) inches 
Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts purchase 


Portrait of James Abbott McNeill Whistler
c. 1890-1900


Count Robert de Montesquiou 
1897 


Lady Colin Campbell
1897


Dona Eulalia of Spain
1898


Madame Georges Hugo (Jeanne Hugo) and Her Son
1898


La femme en rouge 
(The Woman in Red) 
 


La Femme Au Chapeau Noir
Date?
Pastel on linen


Edith Stuyvesant Dresser Vanderbilt 
1900 


Portrait of Mrs. Graham Fair Vanderbilt  (1875-1935)
(First wife of William Kissam Vanderbilt II, and mother of Muriel and Consuelo Vanderbilt)


The Misses Muriel and Consuelo Vanderbilt
Oil on canvas
224.2 x 120 cm  (88 1/4 x 47 1/4 in.)
Gift of Mrs. Vanderbilt Adams 67.31.2
(daughters of William Kissam Vanderbilt II, and first wife  Virginia Graham Fair Vanderbilt) 


Portrait of a Man in a Church
1900
Watercolor on paper


Anita de la Ferie, 
'The Spanish Dancer'
1900


Lina Cavalieri
1901


Portrait of Emiliana Concha de Ossa (2)
1901
 


Portrait of the Artist: Lawrence Alexander "Peter" Harrison
1902
 


Deux Promeneuses (Two Ladies Out For A Walk)
1902
Crayon on paper
 
 
Profile sketch of John Singer Sargent and Paul-César Helleu
1902


Florence, Mrs. (later Lady) Lionel Phillips
1903


 Portrait of Lady Nanne Schrader (Née Wiborg)
1903


Princes Radziwill with red ribbon
1904


'Willy', The Writer Henri Gauthier-Villars
1905
Private collection
Oil on canvas


The Black Sash
1905


Princess Anastasia of Greece
Date?

 


Countess Zichy
1905


Lady Decies
Mrs Henry Lehr
(nee Elizabeth Drexel)
A.K.A
Lady Decies
("Bessie")
1905


Gladys Deacon  (1881-1977)
c, 1905-1908
Oil on canvas
(Second wife of the Duke of Marlborough after he and Consuelo were divorced)


Consuelo Vanderbilt (1876–1964), Duchess of Marlborough, and Her Son, Lord Ivor Spencer-Churchill (1898–1956)
1906


Mme Eugène-Louis Doyen
1910



Ritratto di Mlle Lanthelme
(Miss Lantelme)
1907
 


Portrait of Madame X, 
1907
Oil on panel
10 1/2 x 14 (26.7 x 35.6 cm) inches
Bequest of Whitney Warren, Jr. in memory of Mrs. Adolph B. Spreckels1988.10.6


Portrait of Madame Pages in Evening Dress
Date?


Portrait of Mrs. Whitney Warren, Sr.
1908
Oil on canvas
60 x 33 (152.4 x 83.8 cm) inches
Bequest of Whitney Warren, Jr. in memory of Mrs. Adolph B. Spreckels1988.10.8


Mrs. Howard-Jouhston (Dolly Baird of Dunbarton) 
1908


Marchesa Luisa Casati, with a Greyhound
1908


Madamoiselle de Nemindoff
1908


M.lle Laure
1910


Madame Charles Max


Rita de Acosta Lydig
1911
 


Bust of Isa
date?
 


Head of a Woman
c. 1910-1915


Mlle. de Gillespie, 'La Dame de Biarritz'
1912
 


Madame Juillard In Red
Giovanni Boldini -- Italian-French portrait painter
1912


Donna Franca Florio Portrait
1912


Lina Bilitis, with Two Pekinese
1913


La marchesa Luisa Casati con penne di pavone
(Portrait of the Marquise with peacock pens)
1914


La Signora in Rosa
(Emilia Concha de Fontecilla)
1916


Signora in abito rosso
c. 1916


Figura Femminile
c. 1920


Scena galante
c. 1920


Donna Franca Florio 
c 1921


Portrait of Donna Franca Florio
1924
 


Madame Marie-Louise Herouet
Date?
 


Naked Young Lady with Blanket


Nude of Young Lady on Couch


Symphony in Gray 
1931


Reclining Nude
 


Reclining Nude (2)


Nudino Scattante
(Nude Casting Off)


Alla Toeletta
Date? 


A Lady with a Cat
Date?
 

 


By:  Natasha Wallace
Copyright 1998-2005 all rights reserved
Created: 10/15/2001

 

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