Giovanni Boldini - vendere e comprare opere
31 December 1842, Ferrara (Italy) - 12 January 1931, Paris (France)
Giovanni Boldini, an exceptionally productive 19th century Italian-French portrait painter, enjoyed wide international recognition. Deriving from the naturalism of the Macchiaioli, his style is both impressionist and innovative, and characterised by its confident colouring.
The son of a painter of religious motifs, Boldini studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. Here he moved amongst the Macchiaioli, regarded as the precursors to Italian Impressionism. His landscapes dating from this period are witness to a spontaneous reaction to nature. However, Boldini’s fame was due to his portrait painting; after settling in London he quickly became popular amongst high society, with famous society figures such as Lady Holland and the Duchess of Westminster sitting for him.
In 1872 he finally returned to Paris where he worked for the remainder of his life. As a friend of Edgar Degas, during the late 19th century he became Paris’s favourite portrait painter. His works include many portraits of elegant society ladies and the art world such as the actress Sarah Bernhard. The famous portrait of Verdi in the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome was also painted by Boldini. He was also well-known and popular in America, with a solo exhibition of his works being held in New York in 1897. The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds Boldini’s famous portrait of the Duchess of Marlborough, Consuelo Vanderbilt, with her son.
He served as the Italian commissioner at the Exposition Universelle of 1889 in Paris, and was appointed an officer of the Legion of Honour.
Boldini’s works can be found in public and private collections around the world. They are witness to his popularity which was the result of his energetic brushwork and his modernism, both pre-empting the works of younger artists such as John Singer Sargent. He left behind an oeuvre diverse both in themes as well as styles, and including several important sketches. His portraits reflect his theatrical character while his genre paintings are simultaneously vivid and sensitive. He features in the modern ballet Franca Floria, Regina di Palermo (2007), by Italian composer Lorenzo Ferrero, and the discovery of his portrait of Madame de Florian in an apartment in Paris which had stood empty for 70 years became the subject of Michelle Gable’s book A Paris Apartment (2014).
Works by Giovanni Boldini have achieved top prices in past Dorotheum auctions.