02 Paintings, Streets of Paris, Giovanni Boldini's Al caffè and Scène de fête, with footnotes, Part #84

Giovanni Boldini (Italian, 1842-1931)

Scène de fête, c. 1889

Oil on canvas

H. 96,8 ; L. 104,7 cm.

Musée d’Orsay

Here, Boldini is certainly depicting the Moulin-Rouge just after it opened in 1889. The establishment quickly became one of the hot spots of Parisian nightlife. The vigorous and dynamic brushstrokes and the liveliness of the red recreate the feeling of fun and freedom, sweeping along diners and dancers alike in a brilliantly rendered composition. More on this painting

Giovanni Boldini (Italian, 1842-1931)

Al caffè

Oil on card

10.5 x 18.5cm (4 1/8 x 7 5/16in).

Private collection

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 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. More on this painting

Giovanni Boldini (31 December 1842 in Ferrara, Italy – 11 July 1931 in Paris, France) was an Italian genre and portrait painter. According to a 1933 article in Time magazine, he was known as the "Master of Swish" because of his flowing style of painting. Boldini was born in Ferrara, the son of a painter of religious subjects, and in 1862 went to Florence for six years to study and pursue painting. He only infrequently attended classes at the Academy of Fine Arts, but in Florence, met other realist painters known as the Macchiaioli, who were Italian precursors to Impressionism.

Moving to London, Boldini attained success as a portraitist. He completed portraits of premier members of society. From 1872 he lived in Paris, where he became a friend of Edgar Degas. He also became the most fashionable portrait painter in Paris in the late 19th century. He was nominated commissioner of the Italian section of the Paris Exposition in 1889, and received the Légion d'honneur for this appointment.

A Boldini portrait of his former muse Marthe de Florian, a French actress, was discovered in a Paris flat in late 2010, hidden away from view on the premises that were unvisited for 70 years. The portrait has never been listed, exhibited or published and the flat belonged to de Florian's granddaughter who went to live in the South of France at the outbreak of the Second World War and never returned. A love-note and a biographical reference to the work painted in 1888, when the actress was 24, cemented its authenticity. The full length portrait of the lady in the same clothing and accessories, but less provocative, hangs in the New Orleans Museum of Art. More on Giovanni Boldini

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