The painter Giovanni Boldini was born in Ferrara, Italy, in 1842. Tired of Italian provincialism he relocated to London, but it was Paris that he loved and he moved there at 32, becoming a player in the Belle Époque. Boldini lived in the Place Pigalle, at the foot of Montmartre, an area that was becoming a haven for poets, writers, actors, and Impressionist painters. In this climate of creativity and change, Boldini quickly befriended Edgar Degas, and rose to become one of the century’s most important portraitists. He also knew Proust. In 1933, two years before his death, Time magazine called Boldini the “Master of Swish,” a reference to the feathery sweep of his brushstrokes. This exhibition sees his delicious portraits of Paris socialites and heiresses hanging in the halls of the Petit Palais. —Elena Clavarino