Firework 1890

Giovanni Boldini made this portrait, called Firework, with oil on canvas. The rapid brushstrokes that form this woman’s dress and the space around her evoke the dynamism of modern life in turn-of-the-century Paris, where Boldini spent much of his career. This was the Belle Époque, a time of both optimism and social inequality, when art intersected with commerce and spectacle. Boldini became one of the most in-demand portraitists of the Parisian elite, and in this work, the woman's elegant dress represents the height of Parisian fashion. But it's worth asking: what were the working conditions in the dressmaking ateliers that produced such garments? What were the social roles available to women at this time? And how did institutions like the art market shape what Boldini chose to paint? To answer such questions, art historians consult a wide range of resources: fashion plates, newspapers, economic data, and more. It's through this contextualization that we can understand art as something embedded in social and institutional history.