Elvira, nude torso

Identification

Published titles

English: Elvira, nude torso / Elvira nude / Nude young brunette / Standing nude / Elvire.
French: La fille du poupée.

Date

1918? Pfannstiel dated the canvas 1919. D’Atri dated it 1917.

Medium

Oil on canvas.

Dimensions

92 × 60 cm (Kunstmuseum Bern and Ceroni/Patani). An earlier reading in this investigation gave 100 × 65 cm.

Signature

Signed Modigliani at top right.

Present location

Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland, inv. G 2223. Gift of Walter and Gertrud Hadorn, 1977. The museum picture measures 92 × 60 cm.

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. Léopold Zborowski, Paris? (Patani).
2. Sabouraud Collection, Paris (acquired 1919).
3. Galerie Bing, Paris (acquired 1945).
4. Alternative sequence recorded in this investigation: Lunia Czechowska; Bignou, Paris.
5. Walter Hadorn Collection, Bern.
6. Kunstmuseum Bern, inv. G 2223, gift of Walter and Gertrud Hadorn, 1977.

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.

• Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, July 1925, p. 205.
• André Salmon, 1926, pl. 31.¹
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1929 presumed catalogue, p. 53.²
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1956, no. 338, dated 1919.³
• Ambrogio Ceroni, 1958, no. 207.⁴
• Ambrogio Ceroni and Leone Piccioni, 1970, no. 272, dated 1918.⁵
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 325.⁶
• Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, exhibition catalogue, 1981, no. 73, p. 151.
• Werner Schmalenbach, 1990, p. 117, no. 66.⁷
• Osvaldo Patani, 1991–94, no. 285, dated 1918.⁸
• Christian Parisot, 1991, no. 16/1918.⁹
• Nancy Ireson and Simonetta Fraquelli, Tate Modern, 2017, p. 145.¹⁰

Exhibitions

• Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, 1933, no. 41.
• Basel, Kunsthalle, 1934, no. 61.
• Bern, 1946, no. 101.
• Bern, Kunsthalle, Modigliani, Campigli, Sironi, 1953? (this investigation).
• Lausanne, Exposition Nationale, 1964.
• New York, Museum of Modern Art, European Master Paintings from Swiss Collections, 1976–77.
• Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1981, no. 73.
• Verona, Palazzo Forti, Modigliani a Montparnasse, 1988.
• Düsseldorf / Zurich, 1991, no. 77.
• Martigny, Fondation Pierre Gianadda, 2013, no. 20.
• London, Tate Modern, 2017–18.

Notes

D’Atri papers no. 41, as Elvire (la fille du poupée), 92 × 60.5 cm, dated 1917; provenance Sabouraud Collection, Paris, in 1933.

This investigation records a drawn ear painted over the colour.

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.