Famous Connoisseur (Fameux Connaisseur)

Giovanni Boldini

1883 · Crayon and pencil on graph paper. · Robert Lehman Collection

Boldini experimented with landscape and genre painting, but his greatest talent lay in portraiture. He had well-known clients in Italy, France, and Germany, where he met and painted Adolph Menzel. The inscription indicates that this drawing was made after Boldini relocated to Paris in 1871. The sitter may have been a famous French art critic, perhaps the Parisian Rodolphe Kann, whom Boldini painted in 1902, but it is also possible that the “fameux connaisseur” was a critic visiting from the artist’s native Italy.

Artist

Giovanni Boldini

Date

1883

Medium

Crayon and pencil on graph paper.

Department

Robert Lehman Collection

Credit line

Robert Lehman Collection, 1975