Young brunette (Jeune femme brune)

Identification

Published titles

English: Young brunette; Girl with a bang.
French: Jeune femme brune.
The sitter has also been named Fernande Barrey, Kiki de Montparnasse and Madame Kisling; none of those identifications is settled.

Date

1917 in Lanthemann and Parisot. Pace has published 1917–18. MR’s position has changed: a 1997 fax excluded the canvas; a 2026 Pace notice cites inclusion in the MR catalogue raisonné.

Medium

Oil on canvas.

Dimensions

55.5 × 38.2 cm. Pace has published 55.6 × 38.1 cm.

Signature

Signed modigliani at top right.

Present location

Private collection. Offered by Pace at Art Basel Hong Kong, 2026.

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. Lucie Lolot Galerie, Paris.
2. Leicester Galleries, London (acquired 1928).
3. Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York (acquired 1929; stock no. 49 in 1931).
4. Jane K. Ransohoff Collection, Cincinnati (acquired December 1934).
5. Cincinnati Art Museum, gift of the Ransohoff Collection, 1964; deaccessioned 1990.
6. Leslie Hindman, Chicago, 10 March 1991, sold for USD 500,000.
7. Shaltiel Collection, Chicago.
8. Perls Galleries, New York.
9. Phillips, London, 23 June 1997, estimate GBP 500,000–800,000; withdrawn after a fax from MR.
10. Shaltiel Collection, Florida (unconfirmed).
11. Pace Gallery, offered at Art Basel Hong Kong, 2026, citing inclusion in the MR catalogue raisonné.

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.

• International Studio, March 1929.
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 250, as Young brunette woman, dated 1917.¹
• Christian Parisot, 1992, cover and pp. 146–47.²
• Christian Parisot, A. Modigliani, Jeanne Hébuterne e gli artisti di Montmartre e Montparnasse, Milan, Maiocchi, 2003.
• Christian Parisot, catalogue raisonné vol. V, Rome, 2012.³
• MR, catalogue raisonné (no number known to this investigation; cited by a former owner and by the 2026 Pace notice).

Exhibitions

• London, Leicester Galleries, 1928.
• New York, Pierre Matisse Gallery, 1929.
• San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, French painting from the 15th century to the present day, 1934, no. 214, as Girl with a bang.
• New York, Perls Galleries, 1991–92.
• Bonn, Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle, 2009, no. 87.
• Hong Kong, Art Basel - Pace Gallery, 2026.

Notes

Not listed in the D’Atri papers?

On the day of the Phillips sale in June 1997 MR sent a fax stating that, in his opinion, the painting could not be by Modigliani and would not be included in the catalogue raisonné he was then preparing at the Wildenstein Institute. The information was announced from the rostrum and the lot was withdrawn.

Chemical and spectrographic analysis is cited in this investigation as showing no pigment or material unavailable before 1920.

The same head type is compared in this investigation with at least four other portraits sometimes named Barrey, Kiki or Madame Kisling.

The 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.