Ferrara, at the Estense Castle the exhibition on Giovanni Boldini and his countess

Until September 5, the public can immerse themselves in the art of Giovanni Boldini by visiting the exhibition-focus Boldini. From Drawing to Painting. Around the Contessa De Leusse, on view at the Castello Estense in Ferrara. The exhibition had opened last Feb. 10 but had been closed for a long time due to the pandemic. The exhibition has therefore been extended to allow as many people as possible to visit it.

The exhibition is set up in the Castle’s Hall of Commons, a “container” that is itself a work of art, as evidenced by the extraordinary decorative apparatus created in 1919 by Ettore Zaccari and Giovanni Battista Gianotti. The exhibition, dedicated to the genesis of the female portrait, is built around a painting deposited by a collector at the Gallerie d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Ferrara: the portrait of Countess Berthier de Leusse, painted by Boldini in 1889-90 when he was permanently residing in Paris where, for some years, he had established himself as a worldly portraitist, much sought after by a wealthy international clientele. In the canvas, Suzanne Berthier, a Parisian aristocrat and future consort of Viscount Georges de Leusse, is depicted in profile, seated sideways on a chair and with a closed fan in her hands, as she observes something or someone “off-screen”-a layout that not only highlights the young woman’s graceful features but also lends the image a distinct naturalness. The sensual prominence of the uncovered back could suggest an involvement of the model in the choice of the layout (and “character”) of the painting, where the author, as in other of his portraits set in an interior, takes advantage of the element of furniture to organize an innovative and appealing solution.

Dialoguing with the Contessa de Leusse are a series of drawings from the Boldini Museum collection, some never exhibited: studies of full-length women and individual female faces that document the artist’s hyperactive relationship with the surrounding reality as well as his readiness to record poses and attitudes that would later serve him to lend vitality and dynamism to the protagonists of his portraits, marked by that peculiar rapid yet controlled writing that makes his style unmistakable, and unique. Two oil paintings from his mature years(Nudino scattante of 1910 and La contessa Saffo Zuccoli 1927-28), two engravings (summoned to document another, not insignificant, aspect of Boldini’s production) and the extraordinary bronze portrait of the artist executed by Vincenzo Gemito complete the itinerary.

Ferrara, at the Estense Castle the exhibition on Giovanni Boldini and his countess

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