in Black and White
Giovanni Boldini was an Italian painter best known for his realistic portraits and signature swirling brushstrokes. Like his contemporary John Singer Sargent, Boldini often depicted high society figures of Europe and England in glamorous settings, such as the pearl-laden young opera singer in Portrait of Lina Cavalieri (1901). It’s for his portraits that Giovanni Boldini became famous.
They’re portraits commissioned by wealthy European families, and it’s thanks to his portraits that we know the fashion of that period, accurately described, but also women’s personality, party-loving and happy, who were the protagonists of the chronicles of the time.
Boldini painted thus many well-known paintings of women, for example the famous portrait of Marchesa Luisa Casati, with a Greyhound (1908).
Boldini went on to live as an established portraitist in London before moving permanently to Paris in 1872, where he befriended artists such as Edgar Degas. Boldini died on July 11, 1931 in Paris, France. Today, his works are in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome, the National Portrait Gallery in London, and the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, among others.