Giovanni Boldini (Italian, 1842-1931)
Al caffè
signed and inscribed 'To Miss B. Pearce/with admiration/Boldini' (on the reverse)
oil on card
10.5 x 18.5cm (4 1/8 x 7 5/16in).
Footnotes:
Provenance
Private collection, Italy.

Please note that this lot is accompanied by a digital certificate of authenticity issued by expert on the artist and author of his catalogue raisonné, Dr Francesca Dini.

The son of an artist, Boldini undertook training in his hometown of Ferrara before moving to Florence where he lived for about a decade. Here, from 1864, he joined the Macchiaioli group of artists, now known as the greatest exponents of Realist art in Italy. The portraits painted by the young Boldini at this time - mainly of his artist friends and of some members of the Russian and English aristocracy residing in Tuscany - mark in Italy the renewal of this pictorial genre and they cemented the young Boldini's reputation.

Subsequently, in 1871, he travelled to London where he sought patrons amongst English high society; however, in the same year, drawn by the light and glamour, he decided to settle in Paris. Here, he began producing small fanciful oils designed not only to capture the costumes and lifestyle found in the city's grand homes, but also to please the international clientele of the famous gallery, La Maison Goupil.

During the 1880s, however, Boldini moved away from these somewhat staid subjects and instead devoted himself to the more faithful representation of his beloved Paris. Now, the French capital appears at its most vital with paintings depicting the squares and animated streets, the outdoor cafes, the transit of carriages and their horses' manes in the wind, the elegant bourgeoisie and street vendors, all characterised by a new freedom of brushstroke and modern spatiality. The present lot can be placed during this period of the artist's life.

This work is an early example of his Parisian café sketches, a subject which he revisited several times. These studies seem to have been produced in preparation for one his masterworks, Scène de fête au Moulin Rouge, currently housed at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. In the Musee d'Orsay painting, during one of the usual night sorties, Boldini stops in at the famous Parisian restaurant, made characteristic by the bright reds of the tapestries; he welcomes the clamour of the voices that mix with the sounds of music, of shimmering garlands of suspended lights that come down from the ceiling and make the glasses sparkle, illuminating the wonderful costumes; he has revelled in the attitudes of bystanders, with their desire to seduce and be seduced, as in the case of the seated gentleman to the right of the scene, who confidently perches in front of the cocotte that has approached his table, smiling at him, winking and amused. The atmosphere of this finished oil is captured in the present study, and this shows how the immediacy of these sketches could inform his more highly finished works. This painting can therefore be seen as an early idea on this theme, defined with quick brushstrokes with the characteristic Tiepolesque white lighting.

The dedication placed on the back of the card brings us to the second half of the eighties, at which time Boldini - who was perfecting his new style of portraiture, highlighted by elegant figures painted on a large scale, with energetic and loose brushwork - befriended John Singer Sargent and the group of American painters active in Paris at the time, including Charles Sprague Pearce, a genre painter native to Boston who was distinguished by his gold medal at the Salon of 1883. Pearce married a French lady and remained in France for the rest of his life, so the Miss Pearce mentioned on the reverse of the card could be an American relative of the painter.

We are grateful to Dr Francesca Dini for compiling this catalogue entry.
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