Giovanni Boldini (Ferrara 1842-1931 Paris)

An intimate portrait by Giovanni Boldini, this energetic watercolor presents the sitter in a church’s interior, dominated on the background by a shimmering stained glass window. It has been suggested it could represent the caricaturist Georges Gourçat, known as Sem (1863-1934), who was a good friend of Boldini.

Caught in a relaxed attitude, while resting his cheek on his right hand, the figure’s pose recalls that of Boldini’s Portrait of Degas (Museo Boldini, Ferrara; Giovanni Boldini, exh. cat. Paris, 1991, no. 88, ill.) and the so-called Corsage Rose in a private collection (op. cit., no. 68, ill.). Listed among the properties left by the artist in his studio and carefully catalogued by his wife, Emilia Cardona Boldini, this luminous sheet entered shortly after the collection of Maurice de Rothschild (1881-1957), a friend and a passionate collector of Boldini’s work.