- 54
Giovanni Boldini
Description
- Giovanni Boldini
- In the Park
- signed Boldini (lower left)
- watercolor on heavy paper
- 15 1/4 by 12 1/8 in.
- 38.7 by 30.7 cm
Provenance
Thence by descent to the present owner
Condition
"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."
Catalogue Note
In the Park belongs to a series of works by Giovanni Boldini featuring female figures in gardens and outdoor areas beginning with On the Bench in the Bois (1872, private collection) (Barbara Guidi, "Arrival in Paris and the Search for Success," Giovanni Boldini in Impressionist Paris, Ferrara Arte S.p.A. and Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2009, p. 96). In fact, On the Bench in the Bois (Dini and Dini, 2002, no. 136) shows Berthe, Boldini's lover and muse, seated on the same green wooden park bench as is depicted in In the Park. Boldini repeatedly returned to compositional elements he deemed successful or interesting and often used the same accoutrements in his works. In the present work, Berthe dons a black ruffled dress and embroidered red shawl that appears in Peaceful Days (1875, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts). The Morning Stroll (1873, Private Collection) shows Berthe accompanied by a small white dog; this same pup is perched on Berthe's lap in In the Park, peering inquisitively at the viewer.
In the Park demonstrates that Boldini's ability to beautifully transcribe elegant domestic interiors extends to the natural world as well, as his staccato strokes of shades of green scatter across the picture plane evoking the tenuous, organic quality of nature. Here Boldini uses watercolor to impart a sense of spontaneity to the image; light, shadow and movement are elicited through his lively dabs of color. As his career developed, Boldini was increasingly drawn to painting outdoors. His interest in the natural world is revealed in a description of his new studio to an acquaintance in early 1872: "what is most essential, a room full of windows, for doing open air work" (as quoted in Guidi, "Arrival in Paris and the Search for Success," Giovanni Boldini in Impressionist Paris, p. 96). Boldini's brushstrokes were well-suited to capturing the elusive qualities of nature and, in commenting on another of the artist's outdoor paintings, art critic Edward Strahan "praised the artist's bravura in the rendering of the bluish flickers of light filtering among the leaves, 'a hit at nature's truth' that no one prior to the "Spanish-Roman School" (as the American critic defined the artists similar to Fortuny) had attained" (ibid, p. 97). Boldini ultimately achieved tremendous critical and commercial success in both Europe and the United States and Guidi notes: "It was perhaps this singular marriage of a capacity for historical evocation and attention to the rendering of the natural world that aroused the admiration of such young American artists as Kenyon Cox, William Merritt Chase, James Carroll Beckwith, and John Singer Sargent, who would look upon Boldini as a master with whom to study, an 'eminent artist' to whom they might compare themselves or whose work they might collect" (ibid).