
Peter Rees
Director
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Director
Provenance
with The Lefevre Gallery, London
Private collection, UK
During the 1880s Boldini returned to portraiture, his passion from when he was younger. This study, which is an addition to the Boldini catalogue raisonné, shows some of the recurring themes in the artist's oeuvre, particularly in the period between the end of his relationship with Goupil and the execution of Il pastello bianco, 1888 (Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan). The study of the hand holding the stick is reminiscent of a passage in Nello studio of 1884; it is also possible that this sketch relates to Ritratto di William Seligman painted the year before.1
The study of feminine hands, one of which is caressing a chin with a beaming smile, recalls many half-length female portraits of the Countess De Rasty and other figures like the sensual character in La toilette, 1880.2 It is possible that the tea set, elements of the artist's everyday life, may have been a later addition, but certainly no later than 1900.
For Boldini, drawing was the purest expression of creativity; it was as necessary as breathing and he left countless sketches - on placemats, scraps of paper and newspaper cuttings. He believed that 'a good drawing does not need colour', and that in his studio a malign spirit, or silfo malefico, used drawing to define a figurative language befitting his extraordinary creativity.
We are grateful to Dott.ssa Francesca Dini for confirming the attribution to Giovanni Boldini on the basis of photographs, and for her assistance in cataloguing this lot, which will be included in the first supplement of the catalogue raisonné on the artist currently in preparation. The work will be sold with a photo-certificate from Francesca Dini.
1P. Dini and F. Dini, Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931) Catalogo Ragionato, Turin, 2002, vol.III, section I, nos.398 & 364
2 ibid., no.277