Giovanni Boldini (December 31, 1842 –
July 11, 1931) was an Italian genre
and portrait painter, belonging to the Parisian school. According to a 1933 article in
Time magazine, he was known as the "Master of Swish" because of his flowing style of painting.
Boldini was born in Ferrara, the son of a painter of religious subjects, and went to
Florence in 1862 to study painting, meeting there the realist painters known as the Macchiaioli. Their influence is seen
in Boldini's landscapes which show his spontaneous response to nature, although it is for
his portraits that he became best known. He attained great success in London as a portraitist.
From 1872 Boldini lived in Paris, where he became a friend of Edgar Degas. He also became the most fashionable portrait painter in Paris in the late 19th century, with a
dashing style of painting which shows some Impressionist influence but which most closely
resembles the work of his contemporaries John Singer Sargent and Paul Helleu. He was nominated commissioner of the Italian section of the Paris Exposition in 1889, and received the Légion
d'honneur for this appointment. He died in Paris in 1931.
Works
Boldini's portrait of
Giuseppe Verdi (1886, National Gallery of Modern Art, Rome)
- Portrait of a Man in a Church
- Portrait of Rita de Acosta Lydig
- Portrait of Lina Cavalieri
- Portrait of Willy, The Writer Henri Gauthier-Villars
- Portrait of Anita De La Feria, The Spanish Dancer
- Portrait of Marchesa Luisa Casati, with a Greyhound
- Portrait of Lady Phillips
- Portrait of Madame Josephina Alvear de Errazuriz
- Portrait of Princess Marthe Bibesco
- Portrait of a Lady, Lina Bilitis, with two Pekineses
- The Black Sash
- Portrait of Mrs. Howard-Johnston
- Portrait of Mlle. de Gillespie, La Dame de Biarritz
- Portrait of Donna Franca Florio
- Portrait of Countess Zichy
- Portrait of Madame Hugo, and her son
- Portrait of Giovinetta Errazuriz
- Portrait of Consuelo Vanderbilt, Duchess of Marlborough and her son,
Lord Ivor Spencer-Churchill
- The Misses Muriel and Consuelo
Vanderbilt
- Interior of the artist's studio with the portrait of Giovinetta Errazuriz
- Portrait of the young Subercaseuse
- Mme Georges Victor-Hugo with her son
- Portrait of the Marchesa Luisa Casati
- Studies for the Portrait of Marchesa Luisa Casati
- Portrait of Robert de Montesquiou
- Portrait of Giuseppe Verdi
- La Passeggiata al Bois
- Portrait of Edgar Degas
- Portrait of J. A. M. Whistler
- Self-Portrait
- Place Pigalle
- The Connoisseur
- Gossip
- Delivering the Despatch
- Kitchen Garden
- Repose in the Atelier
- Spanish Dancer
The Vanderbilt collection (Metropolitan Museum, New York City) possesses
two fine examples, Ladies of the First Empire and Des Parisiennes.
External links
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