Giovanni Boldini

Venice, Biennale, 1903, Room P, no. 7
New York, Wildenstein and Co., Loan Exhibition Paintings by Boldini 1845-1931, March 20-April 8, 1933, no. 23

Emilia Cardona, Boldini Parisien d'Italie, Milan, 1952, pp. 122-124
Dario Cecchi, Boldini, Turin, 1962, pp. 171-175
Vito Doria, Il genio di Boldini, Bologna, n.d., pp. 15, 17,  illustrated p. 14
Carlo Ragghianti and Ettore Camesasca, l'opera completa de Boldini, Milan, 1970, p. 115, no. 322, illustrated with photos of Boldini's first conception of the painting and his altered version of 1901-03
Giuseppe Marcenaro, Giovanni Boldini, Genoa, 1987, p. 138
Giovanni Piazza, Boldini, Milan, 1989, p. 301
Piero Dini, Giovanni Boldini, 1842-1932: catalogo ragionato, Turin, 2002, vol. I, pp. 191, 213; vol. II, pp. 170, 172, 173; vol. III, no. 770, illustrated (incorrectly listed as two separate paintings)

Boldini's Portrait of Donna Franca Florio is a remarkably well-documented example of the perils facing a portraitist of the wealthy and socially prominent, as well as a testament to Boldini's deep faith in his own artistic vision.  Commissioned from the artist in 1901 by the sitter's husband, Don Ignazio Florio, Portrait of Donna Franca Florio was significantly transformed by Boldini at the demand of Don Florio before he allowed it to be exhibited in Venice.  Then, some twenty years later, the artist returned the painting to his original conception when the Baron Maurice de Rothschild acquired the portrait following the financial failure of Don Florio's empire. 

At the turn of the twentieth-century, Boldini was the portraitist of choice for a very cosmopolitan social set centered on Paris but encompassing South American diplomats, American socialites, and a wide swathe of Europe's most beautiful and admired women.  His popularity was based on his ability to capture flattering likenesses, as well as his painterly flare and his determination to push at the edges of the past century's notions of decorum. When Don Ignazio Florio, one of the wealthiest men in Italy in 1901, brought Boldini to his Palermo estate to paint his wife, he was clearly aware of Boldini's fame, as he willingly paid handsomely.  But he must have known little of the artist's work, for he soon rejected Boldini's initial portrait, finding it "unnatural and unreal." Boldini calmly brushed aside Don Florio's objections, but he did acquiesce to his patron's demand, overpainting the original portrait with elaborate lace sleeves and a broad lace flounce that covered Donna Franca's legs, adjustments that gave the originally quite contemporary gown a gloss of seventeenth-century elegance.          

When Florio's business interests collapsed in the 1920s, the painting was acquired by one of Boldini's most committed admirers, Baron Maurice de Rothschild, who returned it to Boldini to be restored and signed with a current, 1924, date.  As the Portrait of Donna Franca Florio stands now, it very closely represents Boldini's original vision of Donna Franca --- known through a photograph of the artist posing before the painting (Fig. 1) --- but with a slightly more demure décolletage, and a generally more exuberant background.  Perhaps with the passage of time Boldini himself could recognize that his original handling of the neckline and dropped shoulder strap might have gone beyond propriety.