Shop art print and framed art Le Comte Robert de Montesquiou by Giovanni Boldini

The Portrait of Robert de Montesquiou (Le comte Robert de Montesquiou) is an oil on canvas by Giovanni Boldini, dated 1897 and housed in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. The subject of the painting is Robert de Montesquiou, a decadent French poet famous for the eccentricity and elegance of his lifestyle. One of the most active protagonists of fin-de-siècle Parisian social life, Montesquiou was an inimitable dandy and one of the most enthusiastic apostles of the aesthetic ideas of Ruskin and Pater. He was, in fact, the arbiter of Parisian elegance, distinguished by his refined sobriety of dress and his intolerance of bourgeois mediocrity, and it was no coincidence that he dissipated his money by travelling, following fashion, indulging in non-stop extravagance and indulging in fabulous parties attended by Parisian high society. In the midst of these constant social gatherings was Giovanni Boldini, a painter from Ferrara who had moved to the City of Light with the intention of depicting Parisian society. Montesquiou and Boldini had probably known each other since the 1880s, although a real correspondence between the two did not begin until November 1890, when the French dandy wrote: "You have given me a Whistler by Boldini", probably alluding to the portrait Boldini painted of the American artist in 1887, now in the Brooklyn Museum. The Portrait of Robert de Montesquiou was commissioned from Boldini in 1897 by Olga Veil-Picard, one of the most refined noblewomen in Paris, who acted [...]

 

This artwork is a painting from the modern period. It belongs to the macchiaioli style.

 

« Le Comte Robert de Montesquiou » is kept at Musee d'Orsay, Paris, France.

 

Find the full description of Le Comte Robert de Montesquiou by Giovanni Boldini on Wikipedia.