Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931), Attr. - Il profilo

Giovanni Boldini (Ferrara, 31 December 1842 – Paris, 11 January 1931), attributed to, The Profile; dimensions with its original frame: 55×43 cm.
private collection.
The painting is here prudently proposed as attributed, since it lacks a recent expert assessment; however, among the images is attached a publication from the Dubreuil Gallery of 1992 in which the painting is proposed as autograph and in which a preexisting assessment by Enrico Piceni is cited.
Such a certificate of authenticity on the photograph by Enrico Piceni from 1981 will be sent together with the painting, along with all the documentation shown among the images of the lot.



The visible frame in the photo is included as a courtesy and is not an integral part of the artwork. Any damage to the frame will not be grounds for claims or order cancellations. The artwork will be properly and securely packed. DHL will be used for shipping outside the European community, with delivery times varying from 15 to 20 working days for export documentation. Any taxes and duties are the responsibility of the buyer.

Giovanni Boldini was born on December 31, 1842, in Ferrara, at number 10 of via Volta Paletto (now via Savonarola), in a house at the corner with via delle Vecchie. He was the eighth child of Benvenuta Caleffi (1811-1879) and Antonio Boldini; she was a pious and wealthy woman from Ferrara, while he was an artist native to Spoleto. Baptized on the same day of his birth in the church of Santa Maria in Vado, Giovanni Giusto Filippo Maria Pasini — (the last name in honor of Filippo Pasini) — had twelve siblings: Beatrice (1830), Luigi (1832), Carlotta (1833), Filomena (1835), Maria (1837), Giuseppe (1839), Giovacchino (1841), Francesco (1844), Gaetano (1846), Anna (1848), Veronica (1850), and finally Pietro (1852).

nicknamed Zanin by the family, little Giovanni received his confirmation in 1850 and, in the same year, was taken to the elementary school in the San Domenico neighborhood. Boldini, however, took an interest in art from a young age, so much so that at five years old he had already founded a rudimentary workshop in the family barn. An independent temperament that poorly tolerated any didactic imposition, Boldini prematurely abandoned his studies to learn the first painting rudiments under the guidance of his father Antonio, who knew how to value the boy's precocious talent. The figure of Antonio, a purist painter attracted by the masters of the Quattrocento, was indeed fundamental for Giovanni Boldini's artistic training. Trained in the workshop of a local artist, Giuseppe Saroli, father Antonio moved to Rome to continue his studies at the Academy of Saint Luke: in the capital he absorbed the influences of the Nazarene movement, the purist circle of Minardi, and above all quattrocento painting. A diligent copyist of the works of the Ferrara workshop – which were probably circulated by Filippo Pasini, owner of an important art workshop in Rome – Antonio Boldini was also a passionate painter of purist lineage: the echo of this artistic orientation in the Ferrara milieu is due precisely to Antonio, who in 1835 had also collaborated on a purist magazine named Ape italiana, copying there with painstaking precision Garofalo’s Resurrection of Lazarus, his favorite painter.