Alice

Identification

Published titles

English: Alice.

Date

1917. Compilers disagree: Parisot, Patani and Ceroni date the canvas 1915; Lanthemann, the Modigliani Project and the museum date it 1918; Pfannstiel dated it 1920.

This Painting was included at the Main Berthe Weill exhibit on 1917 therefore it could not be from 1918-1919 it has to be previous to 1918.

The verso inscription recorded in this investigation reads MODIGLIANI. 3
JOSEPH BARA. PARIS / JUIN 1917.

Medium

Oil on canvas.

Dimensions

78.5 × 39 cm.

Signature

Signed Modigliani at top right in white; the name ALICE at top left in black. Verso inscription as above.

Present location

National Gallery of Denmark (SMK), Copenhagen, inv. KMSr145. Acquired 1928 from the Rump Collection.

Catalogue numbers

Legal note on MR: This investigation has not had access to MR’s catalogue raisonné; all research here is based on open sources, publications and exhibitions. By no means has that catalogue been copied at any point. Modigliani Project and Modigliani Initiative are marked YES when the work is published or otherwise recorded by those projects, even if no catalogue number is assigned; otherwise the field is marked ?.

Provenance

1. Georges Chéron, Paris (Patani: 1915–16; that date conflicts with the June 1917 verso inscription).
2. Thorkild Henningsen Collection.
3. Sale of the Henningsen Collection, Dansk Kunsthandel, Copenhagen, 20–21 May 1919.
4. Wils Collection, Copenhagen.
5. Rump Collection, Copenhagen.
6. National Gallery of Denmark, inv. KMSr145, acquired 1928.

The sequence follows the published museum, sale, and catalogue record in this investigation. Gaps and uncertain transfers are marked as such.

Selected bibliography

Book-length publications are marked with a footnote giving a full citation. Exhibition catalogues appear in both this list and the exhibition list when this investigation recorded them in both places. Where this investigation listed a long run of secondary mentions, only the principal catalogues and museum or sale references are retained here.

• Katalog J. Rumps Samling af Moderne Fransk Kunst, 1948, p. 101.
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1956, no. 362, dated 1920.¹
• Ambrogio Ceroni, 1965, p. 176.²
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 288, dated 1918.³
• Ambrogio Ceroni and Leone Piccioni, 1970, no. 69, dated 1915.⁴
• Christian Parisot, 1991, no. 26/1915.⁵
• Osvaldo Patani, 1991–94, no. 71, dated 1915.⁶
• Kenneth Wayne, 2002, p. 109, no. 32, dated 1918.⁷
• Victoria Soto Caba, 2007.⁸

Exhibitions

• Most probably no. 15 titled "Alice" at Paris, Galerie Berthe Weill /Exposition des Peintures et des dessins de Modigliani, December 1917.
• Aarhus, ARoS, Franske mesterværker fra Matisse til Picasso, 1996–97.
• Fort Worth / Los Angeles, 2003, no. 32.

Notes

This investigation marks the work as not located in the D’Atri papers.

This investigation records holes at the corners of the canvas.

This investigation records an underdrawing in which a chain or thread for a hanging cross was later omitted; the cross is painted as a brooch in two strokes. An infrared image of that construction is published in this investigation.

The National Gallery of Denmark confirms Alice, oil on canvas, 78.5 × 39 cm, inv. KMSr145, acquired in 1928 from the Rump Collection (Johannes Rump). The museum dates the canvas 1916–1919, with a working date of about 1918. Its published verso transcription reads “Joseph Bain”; this investigation reads 3 rue Joseph Bara. Both readings are retained.

The original documentation assembled for this investigation marked several fields as still being checked. The facts above are those already published; where sources disagree, both readings are given.