(Ferrara 1845–1931 Paris)
Pianista in abito settecentesco, signed, dated Boldini (18)77,
watercolour on paper on board, 39 x 30 cm, framed

Provenance:
Colonna Collection, Turin;
Sotheby’s Milan, 4 June 2002, lot 176;
Viareggio, Società di Belle Arti - Arte Italiana del XIX e XX secolo, 2013;
Acquired by the father of the current owner from the above;
Thence by descent – Private Collection Italy

Catalogued and illustrated in:
E. Camesasca, C. L. Ragghianti, L’opera completa di Boldini, Milan 1970, p. 91, no. 19 Gc;
Pietro Dini, Francesca Dini, Giovanni Boldini, Catalogo Ragionato, vol. III, part 1, Turin 2002, pp. 150-151, no. 261.

A certificate of authenticity issued by Società di Belle Arti - Arte Italiana del XIX e XX secolo, Viareggio, dated 21 October 2013, is available.

Nineteenth-century Paris was the capital of fashion and style, and Giovanni Boldini brilliantly captured the elegance of the Parisian bourgeoisie. He had a lofty reputation as a painter of women, and the élite were eager to buy paintings from the man whose very brush could create fame.

This work belongs to a series of intimate and small-scale subjects completed during the 1870s. Boldini painted a large number of contemporary scenes depicting young women indoors, engaged in pursuits such as reading, writing, conversation, music and embroidery.
It is assumed that the woman depicted in the present lot is Boldini’s model, Berthe. She was the artist’s lover and often modelled for him. She can be recognised by her blonde hairstyle and her porcelain skin. She is playing music in a room decorated in the eighteenth-century style. She wears an elegant, colourful gown and appears wholly unaware of her audience. A stole is unfolded behind her, likely included by the artist to infuse the scene with colour.

Giovanni Boldini settled in Paris in 1871 and was soon represented by the powerful art dealer Adolph Goupil. His works, such as the present lot, appealed to new European and American collectors. In fact, they became the first works by the artist, drawing on the style of Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier, to be acquired by dealers and collectors in the United States.
These small-scale works depicting elegant ladies in period costume in 18th century interiors were widely admired by the new Parisian bourgeoisie. They helped to cement Boldini’s reputation as one of the most sought-after artists of the Parisian Belle Epoque.

Technical analysis by Gianluca Poldi
The work, applied to a cardboard, is extremely well preserved, as UV fluorescence and IR images also testify. Although it is quite unusual to examine a watercolour by means of IR reflectography, the results of scientific studies carried out on paintings and drawings by Giovanni Boldini in the last few years suggested performing IR and other noninvasive analyses in this case too, in order to investigate its technique, conservation and to better understand the painter’s practice in making watercolours.
IR reflectographic images show a double drawing, executed with a pencil. One is thin and light, barely detectable under the colour, probably partially cancelled by the watercolour brushstrokes; the other is a little larger and more evident, pressed down on the paper without erasing the former. The latter is used to construct the geometric features of the room – the floor, the door and the harpsichord, in a peculiar axonometric perspective – gently and partially covered by a colour glaze, exploiting them in the final effect by leaving some of them clearly visible. These thin yet stronger lines are not traced under the chair, the female figure and the musical instrument, which suggests that their shape had been already drawn.
The other drawing, consisting of only very thin lines, can be found under the figure playing music, her dress and the chair: it is Boldini’s typical underdrawing of of that period, executed with a free gesture, sketching a few figures and elements with very few details.
After drawing the composition, the artist uses a thin paintbrush to draw, cover some lines and better define the objects, again with a sure and free gesture, as in the lines around the mirror and the characters on the right.
Pigments, examined by reflectance spectroscopy, indicate a palette that includes, among others, an intense ultramarine blue, two different kinds of green (transparent chromium oxide and another, modern one), some ochre and the red lake (carminium type). The presence of zinc white reveals Boldini’s early use of this synthetic pigment, which he also employed in his oil paintings after at least 1871.

The great ability of this painter in approaching different colours in a coherent and complex work (for instance, the woman’s dress and the instrument) is evident at closer distance, with a method of small colour stains to create a resonant surface, alternating lights and small shadows. Sometimes Boldini exploits the white of the paper to obtain the mid-lights, while zinc white is employed in the lighter zones, like the shawl on the floor and the lighter borders of the music sheets.

Technical references:
G. Poldi, F. Frezzato, F. Lo Russo, E. Savoia, A. Splendore, Giovanni Boldini: technique and conservation. A systematic scientific study, in A Changing Art. Nineteenth-century painting practice and conservation, Conference proceedings (London, The Wallace Collection, 7th October 2016), edited by N. Costaras, K. Lowry, H. Glanville, P. Balch, V. Sutcliffe e P. Saltmarsh, Archetype, London 2017, pp. 100-115;
G. Poldi, Modi e mode di un pittore. Tra underdrawing e non finito nella tecnica di Giovanni Boldini, “Elephant & Castle”, 16, June 2017, pp. 5-27.