Among the most sought after portraitists of his day with a distinctive, instantly recognizable style, Giovanni Boldini captures here the likeness of the socialite popularly regarded as "the most picturesque woman in America," Rita de Acosta Lydig. Boldini, the artist of choice among American high society, perfectly expresses the energy and high fashion of his sitter through his flamboyant style. One of the few finished, full-length portraits from this extraordinary artist's oeuvre, this portrait, known as the Rothschild Boldini, is counted among his greatest masterpieces.
A woman renowned for her fiery personality, sensational style and unmatched beauty, Lydig served as muse for some of the most celebrated artists of her era. Having been captured in alabaster by sculptor Malvina Hoffmann, on film by the photographers Adolf de Meyer, Edward Steichen, and Gertrude Käsebier, and on canvas by John Singer Sargent and Boldini, Lydig's vivacious visage permeates throughout art history. The present work is unarguably the best among these portraits.
In 1910 Lydig, along with her husband Captain Philips, commissioned two portraits from Boldini, one of the couple and one of Lydig herself. The first is currently in the collection of the Museo Boldini in Ferrara, and is executed in the more formal style of Sir Thomas Gainsborough. The second, which is the present work, offers a far more modern treatment of the sitter - one which perfectly reflects her own voguish character.
Born in 1880 the eldest of eight children, Lydig's father was a Spanish exile, and her mother a member of the Ducal family in Alba. At the age of eighteen, the young beauty married the reclusive multi-millionaire, William Earl Dodge Stokes, divorcing him just four years later and earning the largest divorce settlement to date. Soon after, she married for the second time, becoming Mrs. Lydig and truly cementing her place as a leader of high society. A passionate collector, her enthusiasms ranged from rare lace to furniture of the 15th and 16th centuries, along with bibelots, jewelry, and the fashionable fine arts of the period. Performers such as Sarah Bernhardt, Enrico Caruso, and Arturo Toscanini would often base themselves in her house when visiting the United States.
Above all, Mrs. Lydig was celebrated for her extensive wardrobe. In fact, her personal wardrobe would form the basis of the collection of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art at its inception in 1937. She financed the gifted Callot Soeurs, whose dresses were miracles of delicate workmanship, often composed of antique lace. Her gown in the present painting was seamlessly made from a single piece of exquisite 11th century lace - a delicacy for which she had paid an incredible nine thousand dollars. She was also the first woman to wear backless evening dresses. Her appearance in backless black velvet at the premiere of Puccini's The Girl of the Golden West at the Metropolitan, so excited the composer, that he abandoned his entourage to accompany Mrs. Lydig to her loge.
Yet, her ultimate extravagance lay at her feet. She possessed at least three hundred pairs of exquisite shoes, specially made for her by the famed Ny Yanturni, the East Indian curator of the Cluny museum. Yanturni was obsessed by shoes and chose to make them for a very limited number of clients, from whom he demanded a deposit of one thousand dollars. Here, Boldini paints her at her most fashionable, in her dress by Soeurs and shoes made exclusively for her by Yanturni. With his distinctive energetic brushstrokes, Boldini renders the socialite with a swirling palette of grays, blacks, and golds punctuated only by the brilliant splash of red and pink on her lips and nails. Her serpentine pose evokes the extreme style of the Mannerists, his sweeping brushstrokes the Impressionists, his palette and subject the grand portraits of the Belle Époque - all together the distinctive manner of this modern master.

Along with John Singer Sargent and James McNeill Whistler, Boldini was counted among the most highly sought after modern portraitists in Europe and America. His exuberant, bold style was particularly desirable among his increasingly fashion-conscious clientele, who admired Boldini's simultaneously traditional and modern compositions. Indeed, Boldini's oeuvre displays both his knowledge the more traditional British portrait genre painters such as Sir Anthony van Dyck and Sir Thomas Gainsborough, along with the more modern Impressionists and Italian painters known as the Macchiaioli. Once dubbed the "Master of Swish" by Time magazine for his flowing style, Boldini is regarded among the best of his genre, and today his works can be seen in important museum collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Musée D'Orsay, Art Institute of Chicago, National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome and Palazzo Pitti in Florence.
In terms of quality, the Rothschild Boldini is far better than any of the portraits in the above museums, with only the Musée D'Orsay and the Metropolitan Museum of Art examples coming close in scale and quality. It is no wonder that the fabulous Mrs. Lydig chose the great Boldini to do her most important portraiture. It is also not a surprise that when the all-important French dealer Wildenstein purchased her estate in 1931, he sold this work to his most important client, the significant collector Baron Maurice de Rothschild.