A framed painting by Giovanni Boldini entitled "The Divine in Blue".

Giovanni Boldini (31 December 1842 to 11 July 1931) was an Italian genre and portrait painter. Boldini was born in Ferrara, the son of a painter of religious subjects, and in 1862 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. Their influence is seen in his landscapes which show his spontaneous response to nature, although it is for his portraits that he became best known. Moving to London, Boldini attained success as a portraitist. From 1872 he lived in Paris, where he became a friend of Edgar Degas. He also became the most fashionable portrait painter in Paris in the late 19th century, with a dashing style of painting which shows some Impressionist influence but which most closely resembles the work of his contemporaries John Singer Sargent and Paul Helleu.