Giovanni Boldini
Italian, 1842–1931
Guitar Player
1872
Boldini painted this scene long before he visited Spain. By using props and costumes, he conjures up a flirtatious encounter between a man dressed as a toreador and a woman in a lace mantilla strumming a guitar. Such light-hearted Spanish subjects became popular in France during the 1860s and 1870s. Indeed, this painting was among the first Boldini sold after moving from Italy to Paris.
| Medium | oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 16 3/8 × 13 9/16 in. (41.6 × 34.4 cm) Frame: 20 9/16 × 17 7/8 × 2 3/4 in. (52.2 × 45.4 × 7 cm) |
| Object Number | 1955.651 |
| Acquisition | Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955 |
| Status | On View |
Image Caption
Giovanni Boldini, Guitar Player, 1872, oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute, 1955.651
Select Bibliography
Lees, Sarah, ed. Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; New Haven and London: distributed by Yale University Press, 2012. Cass, David B. and John Wetenhall. Italian Paintings 1850-1910 from Collections in the Northeastern United States. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1982. Doria, Bianca. Boldini: Catalogo Generale dei Disegni. Milan: Skira, 2000. Panconi, Tiziano. Giovanni Boldini: L'Opera Completa. Firenze: Edifir Edizioni Firenze, 2002.
EUROPEAN PAINTINGS CATALOGUE ENTRY
Provenance
The artist, sold to Goupil, 28 May 1872, as Une femme pinçant de la guitare; [Goupil, Paris, sold to Haseltine, 10 June 1872];¹ Charles F. Haseltine, Philadelphia (from 1872); F.C. Lawrance, Pau, his private sale, 17–20 Dec. 1912, no. 245, as La Sérenade au Toréador, sold to Boussod, Valadon; [Boussod, Valadon, Paris, 1/3 share, jointly owned with Michel Knoedler and Arthur Tooth, 1912–13, sold to Jackson, 4 Jan. 1913];² Edwin E. Jackson (from 1913); Arthur W. Bingham Jr., sold to Knoedler, 1929; [Knoedler, New York, sold to Clark, 31 Dec. 1929]; Robert Sterling Clark (1929–55); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955. 1. See Goupil Stock Books, book 5, p. 236, no. 6591. 2. See Goupil Stock Books, book 15, p. 292, no. 30759.
