Giovanni Boldini
Giovanni Boldini was born in Ferrara, Italy on December 31, 1842, to the son of a painter of religious subject matter. In 1862 at the age of 20, he went to Florence for six years to study and pursue painting.
He only infrequently attended classes at the Academy of Fine Arts, but in Florence, met other realist painters known as the Macchiaioli, who were Italian precursors to Impressionism.
Their influence is seen in Boldini’s landscapes which show his spontaneous response to nature, although it is for his portraits that he became best known
