Giovanni Boldini

Jean-Baptiste Faure (and sold, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, April 29, 1878, lot 1, illustrated)
Samuel Untermyer, New York (and sold, his Estate sale, Parke Bernet, New York, May 10-11, 1940, lot 3, illustrated, as Garden Scene-Versailles)
Aquavella Galleries, New York (acquired at the above sale)
Acquired from the above (circa 1941)

Ettore Camesasca, L'opera completa di Boldini, Milan, 1970, pp. 92-3, no. 221b
Piero Dini and Francesca Dini, Giovanni Boldini 1842-1931, Catalogo Ragionato, Turin, 2002, vol. III, p. 139, no. 237, illustrated (the engraving by A. Mongin)
Sarah Lees, Richard Kendell and Barbara Guidi, Giovanni Boldini in Impressionist Paris, exh. cat., Palazzo dei Diamani, Ferrara; Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 2010, p. 97, note 17

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This painting on wooden panel has been cradled on the reverse. The panel is flat and the paint layer is stable. The condition is extremely good. It seems that there are no retouches anywhere to the picture except in the upper center sky, and in a group of small losses in the upper right sky near the clouds. Boldini's extravagant technique is in perfect condition and the painting should be hung as is.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

In 1871, the twenty-nine year old Boldini settled in Paris at the Place Pigalle and quickly became a part of the city’s art scene.  Through much of the 1870s, the artist painted intricate interiors decorated in eighteenth century style and populated by elegant women in period costume, suggesting the influence of historical genre paintings by Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier (also a close friend) and Mariano Fortuny. Keenly aware of contemporary taste, and often prompted by his powerful dealer Adolphe Goupil, Boldini combined his own aesthetic interests with the popular demand for pre-Revolutionary imagery in a series of small, intricately detailed paintings like Les Dômes (Versailles), completed soon after his visit to the extravagant palace in the spring of 1875.  Boldini spent countless hours studying Versailles’ elaborate architecture and rococo decorations and exploring the expansive, manicured grounds, sketching numerous studies en plein air which would later inform his “realistic” paintings of the past (Lees, pp. 30-2).

As suggested by the title, the present work depicts the Bosquet des Dômes, one of Versailles’ many bosquets (small, formal gardens) included in André Le Nôtre’s landscape design commissioned by Louis XIV in 1661.  Constructed in 1675, the Bosquet des Dômes was first known by a series of different names, as various water features and sculptures were moved in and out, before Jules Hardouin-Mansart’s 1677 addition of two white domed pavilions (since destroyed) provided the final moniker.  As Boldini depicts, the circular balustrade and graveled basin, semi-secluded by a high hedge, provide the perfect spot for strollers to rest under a vibrant blue sky -- the heat of the day suggested by pink and blue silk parasols, a fluttering red fan and the light spilling across the sun-warmed stone. Joining the elegant group is a marble sculpture which closely resembles Ansleme Flamen’s 1705 Nymphe de Diane (still standing today), yet in a slightly different pose and without her hound. When considering the present work in 1878, French poet Emile Bergerat suggested that “La Diane Antique” has turned position to follow her “chien de marbre” who perhaps scampered down from the pedestal, spotted by the “gallant” in yellow who gestures toward her (Bergerat in the introduction to the Hôtel Drouot, April 29, 1878 auction catalogue, p. XII).  Among the many statues that were set within the Bosquet des Dômes, Boldini’s choice to include Diana, goddess of the hunt, may be a subtly humorous allusion to the attention paid by charming gentlemen pursuing female admirers, a flirtatious activity played out while a clergyman walks away, ignoring the group as he studies a text.

The narrative and aesthetic appeal of Les Dômes (Versailles) is immediately evident, and contemporary critics could not help use sufficiently florid language to describe Boldini’s compositions of the period. In his Art Treasures of America Edward Strahan noted that Mrs. A. T. Stewart’s similar Boldini of The Park of Versailles in the Eighteenth Century was replete with “gallants making a leg to fine ladies in sedan chairs… the décolleté necks and pinchable little arms of these microscopic puppets shows great mastery in flesh painting of the snuff box-lid scale, and the blue glint from the foliage is a hit at nature’s truth” (facsimile edition, New York, 1877, p. 37). Boldini’s “Versailles compositions” were praised for his well-studied historical details and for their almost impressionistic, expressive handling of paint that captured the specific atmospheric effects of a sunny garden (Guidi, p. 96). This brilliant ability of the artist also attracted the attention of celebrated French operatic baritone and art collector Jean-Baptiste Faure (1830-1914) who probably acquired Les Dômes (Versailles) soon after it was painted in 1875 and as with Boldini’s The Swiss Lake at Versailles perhaps purchased directly from the artist (Guidi, p. 97, note 17).  These two Versailles subjects would join at least four other works by Boldini in Faure’s collection, further suggesting his early and generous support of the artist (Faure was also an important patron of Édouard Manet, sitting for several portraits and acquiring more than sixty of his compositions). In 1878 Faure auctioned part of his collection, including Les Dômes (Versailles) and the next recorded owner of the painting was another powerful collector, Samuel Untermyer (1858-1940), the New York lawyer and self-made millionaire. Exhibited with the Boldini and numerous other masterpieces in Untermyer’s galleries was James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s Nocturne in Blue and Gold, The Falling Rocket (1875, Detroit Institute of Arts) which he purchased from the artist decades after its controversial debut (and its place at the center of the infamous libel trail of Whistler versus the art critic John Ruskin).

Despite its impressive provenance, Les Dômes (Versailles) has long been considered lost and largely known only by an engraving reproduced in the Faure auction catalogue. The publication of Les Dômes (Versailles) today is very likely the first time it has been illustrated in color.