Paul-César Helleu, Asleep

Giovanni Boldini was one of the great society portraitists of the late 19th-century. Many of his friends were also prominent artists. Edgar Degas led him to experiment with printmaking, which became a private, experimental avocation. Here he depicts another society artist, Paul-César Helleu, asleep. In this small, personal creation, we see Boldini’s sophisticated fluency. Nervous, quick undulating strokes impart dynamism even to this quiet subject. He laid out the composition with contrasting lines—some rectilinear, others in sinuous curves. He then shaded the figure with darting, incisive hatching. The effect is so radical and free that it takes one a moment to comprehend the figure amid all the abstracted action. The experimental character of the portrait is heightened by Boldini’s selection of antique bluish paper on which to print it.