Firework

Fireworks, also known in Italian as Fuoco d'artificio, is an oil painting on canvas by the Italian painter Giovanni Boldini, dated roughly between 1892 and 1895. It has been held at the Museo Giovanni Boldini in Ferrara since the institution acquired a group of works from the collection of Emilia Cardona in 1974. The life-size image shows an unidentified woman with dark eyes and black hair gathered in a high bun, her expression barely smiling. She wears an elegant white silk evening gown whose sheen shifts from pink to purple, and her arms are covered by long gloves and puffed sleeves. The dark, neutral background makes the figure seem almost like an apparition, suspended between the ethereal and the tangible. Its most striking feature is the handling of the dress: broad, light brushstrokes, which the title alludes to, dissolve the fabric and wrap the silhouette in a misty halo. The bold colour and composition, bordering on abstraction, reveal a formal freedom rare for the period and capture well Boldini's maturity as a portraitist.

Painter

Giovanni Boldini

Date

1895

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

200 × 100 cm

Museum

Museo Boldini, Ferrara

Genre

portrait

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