Brunette woman (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nancy)
Oil on canvas, 1918?
Identification
- Published titles
- English: Portrait of a woman / Brunette woman / Woman bust.
- Date
- 1918, unconfirmed. Pfannstiel dates the canvas 1918.
- Medium
- Oil on canvas.
- Dimensions
- 65 × 46 cm.
- Signature
- Signed modigliani at top right.
- Present location
- Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nancy.
Catalogue numbers
| Compiler | Number |
|---|---|
| Arthur Pfannstiel | no. 275 |
| Joseph Lanthemann | no. 261 |
| Ambrogio Ceroni | NO |
| Jeanne Modigliani | YES |
| Christian Parisot | YES |
| Osvaldo Patani | NO |
| Modigliani Project | ? |
| MR | ? |
| Modigliani Initiative | ? |
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
- Léopold Zborowski, Paris.
- Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris.
- Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nancy.
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.
- Arthur Pfannstiel, 1929 presumed catalogue, pp. 44–45.1
- Arthur Pfannstiel, 1956, no. 275, as Bust of a young woman, dated 1918.2
- Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 261.3
- Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1981, pl. 23, pp. 43–44.4
- Suzy Delbourgo and Lola Faillant-Dumas, Laboratoires de recherche des Musées de France, 1981.5
Exhibitions
- Barcelona, Centro Cultural de la Caixa de Pensions, Modigliani, curated by Christian Parisot, 1983, no. 31.
- Madrid, Sala de exposiciones de la Caja de Pensiones, Modigliani, curated by Christian Parisot, 1983, no. 31.
Notes
Not recorded in the D’Atri papers.
In 1981 the Laboratoires de recherche des Musées de France (Suzy Delbourgo and Lola Faillant-Dumas) examined the canvas. The published conclusion was that the work is a forgery, on the grounds of inconsistencies of construction and of non-correspondence with other works by Modigliani. The X-ray was described as showing a complete absence of underdrawing; the pigment analysis was described as not coincident with pigments used by Modigliani.
This investigation notes that the same canvas appears in Pfannstiel’s 1929 presumed catalogue and is given a Zborowski / Bernheim-Jeune provenance.
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.
Footnotes
- Arthur Pfannstiel, Modigliani. L’Art et la Vie, preface by Louis Latourette, Paris, Seheur, 1929 (presumed catalogue).
- Arthur Pfannstiel, Modigliani et son œuvre, étude critique et catalogue raisonné, Paris, Bibliothèque des Arts, 1956.
- Joseph Lanthemann, Modigliani, catalogue raisonné: sa vie, son œuvre, son art, Barcelona, G. Condal, 1970.
- Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Modigliani, exhibition catalogue, 1981.
- Suzy Delbourgo and Lola Faillant-Dumas, Laboratoires de recherche des Musées de France, technical report on the Nancy canvas, 1981. The spelling Delbourgo is the form used in the 1981 Paris exhibition; this file had recorded Delburgo.