The son of a painter and restorer in Ferrara, Giovanni Boldini studied at Florence’s Art Academy in 1864. He first exhibited his work in 1867, visiting the Exposition Universelle in Paris the same year. Early on, Boldini stood out as a portrait painter. During a trip to London in 1870 he received several portrait commissions. The following year, he established a studio in Paris. Boldini first showed at the Salon in 1874. Through his Parisian dealer Adolphe Goupil, Boldini’s portraits of elegant women in lavish interiors found aficionados in England and America.

After moving to a new studio in 1885, Boldini started to produce society portraits, soon developing a formidable reputation for his dazzling, elegant depictions of Parisian high society. By the turn of the century Boldini was the most sought-after portrait painter in Paris. He befriended John Singer Sargent and Whistler, and became close friends with Degas. His fame reached as far as America, from where he received numerous commissions after exhibiting at Boussod, Valadon & Co. in New York in 1897.

Boldini was a gifted and somewhat compulsive draughtsman, filling several sketchbooks, menus, postcards and receipts with dynamic sketches and more elaborate studies. A large group of drawings were bequeathed by the artist’s widow in 1935 to the Museo Giovanni Boldini in Ferrara. Among them is a portrait of Degas, depicted in a similar meditative pose with his cheek resting in his hand. The present energetic watercolor is possibly a portrait of his friend the caricaturist Georges “Sem” Gourçat (1863-1934). Listed among the properties left by the artist in his studio, carefully catalogued by his wife Emilia Cardona Boldini, this luminous drawing soon after entered the collection of Maurice de Rothschild, a friend and passionate collector of Boldini’s work.