The Lady in Pink (Portrait of Olivia Concha de Fontecilla), 1916

Oil on canvas, 163 x 113 cm
Museo Giovanni Boldini, inv. 1386

Beginning at the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, Boldini’s style became increasingly daring: the frayed and frayed pictorial material was spread in large, energetic brushstrokes capable of rendering even the reflections of the fine fabrics of the clothes. The now customary choice of portraying the models in elegant but casual attitudes, as if they were not posing, gives the portraits that peculiar note of modernity with which the artist had been able to renew the classic canon of the official portrait.

The lady in pink, made in 1916, is one of Boldini’s most successful examples of late maturity. Apparently, the effigy belonged to the Chilean Subercaseaux-Concha-Errázuriz family and was the niece of Emiliana Concha de Ossa, Boldini’s model in 1888 for the famous White crayon. L’eccezionale abilità pittorica unita ad un ricco repertorio di pose ricercate e ad un’ampia gamma di accordi cromatici fanno di lui, nonostante l’età ormai avanzata, ancora uno dei più contesi ritrattisti del bel mondo.