Dolce Farniente

This intimate portrait of the artist’s wife Florentina, Dolce Farniente is categorically Western. Pose and composition derive from well-known traditions of the reclining nude or harem scenes of the 19th century Orientalists, with its dramatic play on light, sensuous palette, and lavish drapery. An extremely daring portrait for its time and place, its provocative attitude not only shows the bold and strong personality of Trindade’s wife, but also the painter’s willingness to flaunt his modernity.
Western viewers were familiar with this sort of seductive pose, but that wasn’t the case with the Indian audience. Despite its provocative character it won A.X.T. the highest honour an artist could aspire to at that time, the Bombay Art Society gold medal in 1920.
Florentina seems to invite the viewer into her boudoir. Comfortably propped against a heap of soft quilts, she provocatively presses an embroidered scarf over her exposed breast. This gesture was already a convention in 18th and 19th century European painting. Trindade’s light modulation and the contrasting use of dark red drapery juxtaposed against the glowing flesh and gold and white wrapping, also accentuate the erotic nature of this painting.
References: Shihandi, Marcella, et al, António Xavier Trindade: An Indian Painter from Portuguese Goa (exhibition catalogue), Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, 1996; Tavares, Cristina Azevedo et al, António Xavier Trindade: Um Pintor de Goa (exhibition catalogue), Lisbon, Fundação Oriente, 2005; Gracias, Fátima, Faces of Colonial India: The Work of Goan Artist António Xavier Trindade (1870-1935), Panjim, Goa, Fundação Oriente, 2014.