Identification

Title

Moïse Kisling.

Date

1916?
Pfannstiel and Lanthemann date it 1915.
Ceroni dates it 1916.
Photographs of Guillaume Apollinaire dedicated in July and August 1916 show the painting already in place.

Medium

Oil on cardboard. Ceroni, Parisot, Pfannstiel and Lanthemann say canvas. Christie’s, New York, 1 November 2005, catalogued it as oil on board (cardboard).

Dimensions

104.8 × 74.9 cm. Patani, Parisot and Ceroni: 104 × 75 cm. Pfannstiel: 105 × 74 cm.

Signature

Signed modigliani at lower left.

Present location

Private collection, recorded with a query.

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. Paul Guillaume, Paris.
2. Jean Walter, Paris.
3. Emilio Jesi Collection, Milan.
4. Jacques Lindon Collection, New York.
5. Leo M. Rogers Collection, New York.
6. Christie’s, London, 27 June 1972, lot 139.
7. Arthur Tooth & Sons, London (acquired at the above sale).
8. Private collection (acquired in 1973).
9. Christie’s, New York, 1 November 2005, sale 1570, lot 44, as oil on board (estimate USD 6,000,000–8,000,000; sold USD 5,616,000; dated 1916 in the catalogue).
10. 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.

• Waldemar George, La grande peinture contemporaine à la collection Paul Guillaume, Paris, 1929, p. 140.
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1929, p. 9, no. 6.¹
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1956, no. 60, dated 1915.²
• Ambrogio Ceroni, 1958, no. 53, dated 1915.³
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 92, dated 1915.⁴
• Ambrogio Ceroni and Leone Piccioni, 1970, no. 107, dated 1916.⁵
• Christian Parisot, 1991, no. 2/1916.⁶
• Osvaldo Patani, 1991–94, no. 111, as oil on canvas, 104 × 75 cm.⁷
• Werner Schmalenbach, 1990, p. 88, no. 39.⁸
• MR, 2002, p. 39.⁹
• Nancy Ireson and Simonetta Fraquelli, 2017, p. 116.¹⁰

Exhibitions

• Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, La grande peinture contemporaine à la collection Paul Guillaume, 1929.
• Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Art italien contemporain, 1950, no. 60.
• New York, Acquavella Galleries, 1971, no. 5 (catalogued as oil on canvas).
• Tokyo, National Museum, and Nagoya, 1985, no. 61.
• Düsseldorf and Zurich, 1991, no. 34.
• Paris, Musée du Luxembourg, 2002, and Milan, Palazzo Reale, 2003.
• London, Tate Modern, 2017–2018.

Notes

D’Atri files no. 277 as portrait of the painter Kisling, 105 × 74 cm, signed lower left, dated 1915, provenance Paul Guillaume 1929.

This investigation records holes at the corners of the support.

This investigation records a drawn ear painted over the colour.

Two photographs of Guillaume Apollinaire, dedicated 13 July 1916 (to André Thévenin) and August 1916 (to André Breton), show the painting in Guillaume’s gallery. In those photographs the jacket reads as light; the present surface is blue. This investigation records both observations without concluding whether the jacket was later altered.

The painting is included in the reconstructed Guillaume office at the Musée de l’Orangerie.

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