Portrait of Donna Franca Florio
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| Portrait of Donna Franca Florio | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Giovanni Boldini |
| Year | 1901–1924 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 221 cm × 119.4 cm (87 in × 47.0 in) |
| Location | Palazzo Mazzarino, Palermo |
The Portrait of Donna Franca Florio, or Portrait of Mrs. Franca Florio, is an oil on canvas painting by the Italian painter Giovanni Boldini. It was created in 1901 but retouched several times, until the current version, signed and dated in 1924. Since 2017, the painting is in the Palazzo Mazzarino, in Palermo.[1]
The subject of the painting is the famous Donna Franca Florio, otherwise known as the "Queen of Sicily". She was a member of a Sicilian aristocratic family who entered by marriage the richest business family on the island. Donna Franca was the undisputed celebrity of all the events of the high society of Palermo. She spoke four languages fluently and her beauty and elegance had granted her many male admirers, like the poet Gabriele D'Annunzio and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. An icon of the Belle Époque, Donna Franca was also a skilled entrepreneur, helping her husband Ignazio Florio Jr. in the family business.
In 1901 Ignazio Florio commissioned Boldini to make a painting that would immortalize the radiant beauty and elegance of his wife. Boldini moved from Paris to Palermo, where he was a guest of the Florios, thus creating the portrait. The original version of the work depicted Donna Franca wrapped in a regal black evening dress embellished with various golden embroidery, also equipped with long sleeves with inlays on the cuffs. Boldini would intervene on the canvas two more times. The final time was in 1924, when he inserted a chair and revealed the noblewoman's arms, updating the clothing to the fashion of the 1920s, eliminating the embroidery, sleeves and corset, with the dress falling straight and short to the ankles. Donna Franca's personality seems suited to the liberating fashion of the Roaring Twenties; however, her looks seem not to have aged, since she was 27 years old in the original version, and now she is 50. Thus she appears as a kind of timeless beauty.[2]