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Dimensions: 52 3/4 by 49 1/4 in.
134 by 125cm
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Provenance: PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN
Commissioned by Ramon Subercaseaux, 1887
Collection Luis Subercaseaux
Sale, Christie's, London, April 11, 1972, lot 45, illustrated
Collection Christopher Gibbs, London
H. Shickman Gallery, New York
Joseph Tanenbaum, Toronto
Sale, Sotheby's, New York, May 22, 1991, lot 83, illustrated
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Exhibited: Ottawa, Canada, The National Gallery of Canada, The Other Nineteenth Century, 1978, no. 6
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Literature: Dario Cecchi, Giovanni Boldini, Turin, 1962, p. 120
Carlo Ragghianti and Ettore Camesasca, L'Opera Completa de Boldini, Milan, 1970, pp. 102-3, no. 156, illustrated
Apollo Magazine, Volume XCV, June 1972, p. 189, illustrated
Bianca Doria, Giovanni Boldini: Catalogo Generale, Rizzoli, Milan, 2000, no. 220, illustrated
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Notes: Giovanni Boldini learned his craft in Florence, but he built his career first in London and then in Paris. He was a portraitist of truly international stature, with a clientele that seemed to stretch to every habitable continent. Boldini's success derived from his command of very fundamental skills and his limitless taste for invention. He gave his patrons strong likenesses wedded to a compositional freedom and coloristic novelty that was daring and undeniably modern.
In his double portrait of Luis and Pedro Subercaseax, painted in 1887, Boldini left the large canvas empty except for the boys and a single arm chair, set against the indeterminate space of a rising flooring whose mauve color is both regal and distinctly 1880s in its period character. The artist's focus, as the viewer's, is directly on the young men who command their space with self-confidence and poses of nonchalance well beyond their years. The restrained choice of colors plays up the strong contrasts of their simple schoolboy dress, and their starched white collars compliment the boys' pale complexions. Pedro's half-smile, and the drawing of a ship that he holds, suggests a friendly familiarity with the artist that must have directly contributed to the painting's success.
Luis and Pedro Subercaseaux were the sons of Amalia Subercaseaux (née Errazuriz) and her husband Ramon Subercaseaux. In addition to the double portrait of the children, Boldini was also commissioned to paint portraits of both Ramon and Amalia during their 1887 stay in Paris. Ramon Subercaseaux was a writer and painter and served as Minister of External Affairs for Chile as well as Chilean Ambassador to France and to Germany. His younger son, Luis, on the left in the present portrait, also served as an Ambassador for Chile.
