Bottegantica traces Boldini's production, from his Parisian years to female portraits, in a monograph

Galleria Bottegantica in Milan presents the exhibition Eterno Boldini, curated by Francesca Dini, from October 14 to December 3, 2022. The author of the Catalogo ragionato dell’opera di Giovanni Boldini traces in this monographic exhibition the Ferrara painter ’s career from his early Parisian years to the female portraits of the early 20th century through a juxtaposition of known and previously unpublished works. The exhibition will bring together a wide selection of paintings, watercolors and drawings, with the aim of highlighting the artist’s versatility.

The early Parisian years during which Boldini worked for the famous Maison Goupil will be represented by two sought-after small oil paintings: Old Song, among the first plates painted around 1871, and Gallant Scene in the Park of Versailles from 1877. In order to capture the Rococo pageantry and observe en plein air the park’s vegetation and light element, Boldini stayed briefly in Versailles. It is precisely the Park of Versailles that will remain in Boldini’s imagination, evoked almost nostalgically in some turn-of-the-century drawings, such as Colonnade à Versailles (1890-1899), whose arches are rendered with a few essential strokes.

The elegance, refinement, and internationality of the Parisian artistic milieu are also the backdrop for an unpublished watercolor, The Artist’s Atelier, dated c. 1874: a still life of objects composed on the floor of a studio. The atelier setting is evoked in the well-known Portrait of the painter Joaquin Araujo y Ruano, Boldini’s colleague and friend, and the same objects scattered on the floor recall Mariano Fortuny’s personal collection. Also dating from this early Parisian period are some of the half-length figure paintings on display in the exhibition, such as The Spaniard (ca. 1878), or portraits such as La Rejane on Stage (ca. 1878-1884), an unpublished oil painting of actress Gabrielle Rejane, portrayed on several occasions by the artist, who was a great admirer of his.

Also highlighted in the exhibition will be his rendering of the landscape, particularly of his beloved Venice, visited several times since the late 1880s and captured not only in many paintings, including Gondole davanti a Piazza San Marco (c. 1895), but also in many drawings, with a dense and dynamic stroke as in Palazzi sul Canal Grande (1890-1899), or more tenuous and synthetic as in Ormeggi e gondole (1880-1889).

To the portraits of the early twentieth century belong a number of important paintings, including the Portrait of Lady Nanne Schrader, a well-known concert performer and organizer of musical events whom Boldini portrayed in 1903, and the Portrait of Señora Matías de Errázuriz Ortúzar (1912), a member of one of Argentina’s most influential families and wife of the Chilean Ambassador to Paris.

Finally, in addition to a selection of drawings from the artist’s studio, an unpublished album of drawings dating from around 1879-1880 will also be on display. A notebook whose variety of subjects, including sketches and more accomplished compositions, underscores the centrality of drawing in Boldini’s work.

For info: www.bottegantica.com

Hours: Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.

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Image: Giovanni Boldini, Portrait of Lady Nanne Schrader née Wiborg (1903; oil on canvas, 120 x 94.3 cm)

Bottegantica traces Boldini's production, from his Parisian years to female portraits, in a monograph

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