Art Of The Day Weekly
#538 - from 10 January 2019 to 16 January 2019
Giovanni Boldini, Gladys Deacon, 1916. Oil on canvas, Private Collection.
Boldini, prince of fashion
FERRARA – He’s back home! Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931) developed the larger part of his career in Paris, where he was one of the favorites of the high society. The most beautiful women of the times, starting with his mistress countess de Rasty; princess Radziwill; Gladys Deacon, duchess of Marlborough; mademoiselle Lantelme, the mistress and then wife of press tycoon Alfred Edwards, and who drowned in the Rhine river at age 28; the most famous bankers; dandies such as Montesquiou, or simply his colleagues (Whistler) insisted on having him paint their portrait. He saw different dress habits and fashions throughout his long career, including headdresses, gauze and lames, silks and crepes. Fashion is precisely the backbone of the exhibition, in particular the one of the Belle Epoque, seen by an Italian who loved women and their attires. Degas, Proust and D’Annunzio were of course part of the group.
• Boldini e la moda at Palazzo dei Diamanti, from 16 February to 2 June 2019.