Identification

Published titles

English: Lunia Czechowska in Black; Mme Lunia Czechowska; Mme Zborowska.
French: La robe noire.

Date

Pfannstiel dates the work 1918. Ceroni, Lanthemann and Parisot date it 1919.

Medium

Oil on canvas.

Dimensions

92.4 × 60 cm.

Signature

Signed modigliani at top right.

Present location

Private 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. Léopold Zborowski, Paris.
2. Cornelius J. Sullivan Collection, New York, acquired from Zborowski in 1932.
3. Estate of Cornelius J. Sullivan, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 6 December 1939, lot 58.
4. Chester Dale Collection, New York, acquired at that sale.
5. M. Knoedler & Co., New York, acquired 5 April 1954.
6. Heinz Collection, New York, acquired 3 November 1954.
7. The Collection of Drue Heinz, Christie’s, New York, sale 17154, 13 May 2019, lot 25A, estimate $12,000,000–18,000,000, sold $25,245,000 including premium.
8. Private collection?

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.

• Maud Dale, 1929, pl. 31, as Mme Zborowska.¹
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1929 presumed catalogue, p. 49.²
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1956, no. 293, as Mme Lunia Czechowska, dated 1918, still given as a private collection, Paris, although the painting had left France in 1932.³
• Ambrogio Ceroni, 1958, p. 67, no. 145.
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 382, as Lunia Czechowska seated, dated 1919.⁴
• Ambrogio Ceroni and Leone Piccioni, 1970, no. 318, as Lunia Czechowska in black, dated 1919.⁵
• Christian Parisot, 1991 and 2012, no. 16/1919.⁶
• Osvaldo Patani, 1991–94, no. 329.⁷
• MR, Luxembourg 2002, mentioned as original, p. 380.

Exhibitions

• Springfield, Museum of Fine Arts, Opening Exhibition in Honor of James Philip and Julia Emma Gray, 1933, no. 120.
• New York, Valentine Gallery, Twelve Portraits by Modigliani, 1940, no. 12.
• Philadelphia Museum of Art, Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection, 1943, no. 28.
• Cincinnati, The Contemporary Arts Center, 1959, no. 21.
• New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, Yale Alumni, 1960, no. 107.
• London, National Portrait Gallery, Painting the Century, 2000–01.
• London, Royal Academy of Arts, Modigliani and His Models, 2006, no. 47.

Notes

Most probably D’Atri papers no. 215, as Mme Tchechowska, 92 × 60.5 cm, dated 1917, Zborowski Collection, Paris, 1929.

The same background and bed appear in related portraits.

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