Lot Essay
This previously unrecorded work is one of a series of portraits by the artist of the Spanish dancer, Anita de la Feria, painted in Paris in 1900. Boldini had visited Spain in 1877, but the choice of subject may have derived from the influence of John Singer Sargent. The two artists were friends and Sargent let him his studio on the Boulevard Berthier in 1886. Through this association, Boldini would have been aware of El Jaleo (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston), exhibited in the Salon in 1882. In the summer of 1887, he paid a short visit to St. Sebastiano, particularly enjoying the prowess of the bullfighters, Lagartijo and Frascuelo. The following year, the Universal Exhibition in Barcelona introduced the revolutionary new movement, el modernismo, otherwise called the the aesthetic style. In Paris, Carolina Otéro had introduced a Spanish flavor to Cafe Society and this tradition was continued by the dancers La Tortajada and Anita de la Feria in the last decade of the century.
Dario Cecchi writes, "...but they loosely interpreted the dance, which had nothing to do with Spain except for the castanets and the swirling of full, multicolored skirts."
Of the three principle portraits in the series (both in Private Collections, Milan), one is on a smaller scale, while the other has been reduced to include only the head of the dancer. In the first portrait, she seems surprised by a hat which has been thrown at her feet, and in the second (although wearing a different shawl), she uses it as a prop for her dance. In our version, which is closely related to the second, she has turned from her left towards us, keeping the same background with its vigorous brushwork to suggest the excitement of the dance.
Baron Maurice De Rothschild was later to acquire the small full-length version (loc. cit) from Wildenstein and Co. in New York. Both works were confiscated by the Nazis, with the Baron only being able to recover our work, as Count Ribbentrop had made a gift of the smaller picture to his fascist colleague, Galeazzo Ciano.
Dario Cecchi writes, "...but they loosely interpreted the dance, which had nothing to do with Spain except for the castanets and the swirling of full, multicolored skirts."
Of the three principle portraits in the series (both in Private Collections, Milan), one is on a smaller scale, while the other has been reduced to include only the head of the dancer. In the first portrait, she seems surprised by a hat which has been thrown at her feet, and in the second (although wearing a different shawl), she uses it as a prop for her dance. In our version, which is closely related to the second, she has turned from her left towards us, keeping the same background with its vigorous brushwork to suggest the excitement of the dance.
Baron Maurice De Rothschild was later to acquire the small full-length version (loc. cit) from Wildenstein and Co. in New York. Both works were confiscated by the Nazis, with the Baron only being able to recover our work, as Count Ribbentrop had made a gift of the smaller picture to his fascist colleague, Galeazzo Ciano.