GIOVANNI BOLDINI
Italian, 1842–1931
Tramonto con Pescatori, Étretat
Signed Boldini
Oil on panel
7 x 12 inches (17.8 x 30 cm)
Framed: 11½ x 16¼ inches (29.3 x 41.3 cm)
Painted in 1879, this vibrant oil study relates closely to Boldini's Return of the Fishing Boats, Étretat of the same year, in the collection of the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts. The Clark painting is described as "one of the most remarkable of Boldini's works. Produced during a visit to the Normandy coast in 1879, it is meticulously executed in a small, verging on miniature, scale, yet it also captures a sense of the almost infinite distance of a view over water and the quality of light at the end of a cloudy day... While he was in Étretat, Boldini painted a small group of works in oil that are linked by their shared size and subject matter, as well as at least one watercolor, The Beach" (Sarah Lees, ed., p. 58).
In the background of both this study and the Clark painting is the famous Falaise d'Aval, the cliff of Étretat, which was painted by many artists of the period including Courbet, Monet, and Boudin, and is the subject of the current exhibition, Étretat, beyond the cliffs: Courbet, Monet, Matisse, at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon.
Provenance
The Hon. Mrs. Reginald (Daisy) Fellowes, Donnington Grove, Newbury
Private Collection, England, by descent from the above (sale, Christie's, London, June 13, 1997, lot 121, illustrated)
Private Collection, USA (acquired from the above, until 2025)
Literature
Piero Dini and Francesca Dini, Giovanni Boldini 1842-1931: Catalogo Ragionato, Turin, 2002, vol. 1, p. 169; vol. 3, p. 174, no. 304, illustrated
cf. Sarah Lees, ed., Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, New Haven, 2012, vol. 1, p. 58, no. 25, for illustration of the related painting Return of the Fishing Boats, Étretat
$37,500
GIOVANNI BOLDINI - Return of the Fishing Boats, Étretat
Oil on panel, 5½ x 9½ inches (14 x 23.9 cm)
[Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA]