Firework, 1892-1895, Ferrare, Museo Giovanni Boldini

One thing is certain with Giovanni Boldini‘s retrospective at Petit Palais: the Italian painter (1842-1931) loved women and when he pictures them fairly denuded in pastel or lavishly dressed in full length portraits, they are always sensuous and beautiful. Yet he was not handsome at all, quite the contrary as described by his best friends. He was so short that he was not accepted in the Italian army. The show of more than 150 paintings, opening today, is a perfect moment of elegance and aesthetics. The different rooms painted in bright red, in greys, in plumb color or in green, reflect the different stages of the Ferrare born artist’s career, who spent 60 years of his long life in Paris. A true star in Italy, he had not been shown in France since 1991 at Musée Marmottan. And it is a real firework that we are invited to see. 

The Countess de Rasty at Rest, ca 1880, pastel on silk, private collection course Massimo Vecchia

A contemporary of Verdi and of caricaturist SEM who were both close friends, Boldini collected mistresses and painted them. Countess Gabrielle de Rasty introduced him to high society and became his muse for ten years in the 1880’s. A painting called “Abandon” (abandonment) is very eloquent. He was first introduced to Italian society by Isabella Robinson Falconer in Florence, an English lady who, very early on, was convinced of his superior talent. He spent time at her villa la Falconeria where he painted the walls a tempera. She also travelled to the Riviera with him after he visited the Exposition Universelle of 1867 and took him around rich collectors. In 1871, he travels to London where he will send seven months painting mer beds of the aristocracy. “In London I became fashionable; they call me the Little Italian” he declared later. But Paris will be a stronger attraction and he settles there in October.

Berthe smoking, 1874, Private collection, courtesy Concezione Ltd

The first room of the show includes a number of bucolic scenes with Berthe, his first French lover. He paints her at home smoking, or in the country as a guitar player or with a matador. All these small paintings are colorful and very precise in the details, very technical. And we discover the early taste of the master for dresses and costumes that he will develop all his career. A few sea views follow with fishermen in Etretat and the Seine, but very soon, the artist diverts from the themes dear to the Impressionists or to Barbizon painters and focuses on portraits. Virtuose society portraits, where he depicts ladies in their intimacy. All the models were asked to come to his studio, John Singer Sargent‘s former studio until 1880, on boulevard Berthier, with their favorite dresses and some of them refused to return… It is murmured that if there is no portrait of Comtesse Greffulhe, it’s because she did not want to risk being alone with him. But teh curators included means of her dresses and a pretty pair of pink shoes.

Portrait of Georges Goursat, known as SEM, 1862, Paris MAD

My two favorite paintings, both in shades of greys, are of SEM, the turn of the century caricaturist, and of the little, Subercaseaux, the 11 year old son of a Chilean diplomat, Ramon Subercaseaux Vicuña, who looks impatient, seated on a Louis XVI sofa. These paintings are extroardinarily refined and yet totally relaxed. They hang not too far from the very elegant artist Lawrence Alexander Harrison, and the famous portrait of Robert de Montesquiou in profile, the “Painter as his easel” or Paul Helleu painting. Boldini socialized with many foreign painters such as Mariano Fortuny, whose son will become the great fashion designer, Sargent,  Whistler and La Gandara. Yet he singularises himself and remains original from beginning to end. He paints all day long and produces an enormous amount of works. He is industrious and also very mean and obsessed with money.

Portrait of little Subercaseaux, 1891, Ferrara, Museo Giovanni Boldini

In the last very long room, a series of exquisite portraits of ladies in pinks and greys, is crowned by the one of Princesse Bibesco, the Romanian historian and writer who recalls that “ladies of the time dressed à la Boldini ” and “were required to go on a diet so as to resemble the canons of Boldinian beauty”. In her portrait, Princesse Bibesco wears a swirling black and silver dress. The canvas was refused by her husband who deemed her cleavage unseemly. The painting is today in a private collection. Another chef d’oeuvre is that of Madame Eugène Schneider (born Antoinette de Saint Sauveur) and her son Charles, which is twined with Pauline Hugo and her son Jean, who will become a painter himself.

Antoinette Schneider and her son Charles, 1903, and Pauline Hugo and her son Jean, 1898, private collections

The show is exquisitely designed with a large number of works lent by Museo Boldini in Ferrara and there are numerous concerts and conferences organized during the months of May and June. A few dresses lent by Musée Galliera add to the fun of the portraits and even men’s boots similar to those worn by SEM are shown in a window next to his portrait.

Portrait of Princesse Marthe-Lucile Bibesco, 1911, Private collection

In his views of Paris, Boldini very often includes horses. A large painting in the second room depicts “Two white horses” in a fulgurant style which makes it almost abstract. In “Leaving a masked ball in Montmartre”, we find horses again, as in “the Russian church of rue Daru” , in “l’Omnibus of Place Pigalle”, “Le cocher” or in “Nocturnes in Montmartre”. This is part of his love for movement which he includes in every canvas. In the ravishing red portrait of Miss Bell one can see the dress floating, as in “The lady in Pink” or the “Marchioness Luisa Casati with her peacock feathers”.

A costumed man, Giovanni Boldini and Marchioness Casati, Heritage images

Giovanni Boldini married a journalist Emilia Cardona at 86, in 1929, after meeting her when she interviewed him for Turin’s Gazzetta del popolo. She wrote the first biography on  him after he died in 1931.

Far from being only a social painter, Boldini proves here, thanks to the research done by Servane Dargnies de Vitry and Barbara Guidi, that he was a meticulous artist with a very singular talent. Sadly le Petit Palais does not own any of his paintings but Christophe Leribault’s last exhibition in this 1900 building,  is perfectly adapted to the style of the museum.

Petit Palais until July 24. It is mandatory to book for both exhibitions Edelfelt and Boldini. But you can have lunch in the garden without booking. A catalog is available for 39,90€.