Identification

Published titles

English: Woman with red hair (Elena); Woman with red hair; Elena.
French: Femme aux cheveux rouges; Tête de femme.

Date

1917. The 1964 Pasadena exhibition dated the work circa 1916.

Medium

Oil on cardboard. Pfannstiel and Lanthemann record canvas.

Dimensions

35 × 27 cm.

Signature

Signed modigliani / 1917 at bottom right in white; the word ELENA in black at top right. Reverse not recorded as seen.

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. Paul Guillaume, Paris (illustrated in his photo-archives?).
2. Léopold Zborowski, Paris.
3. Alden Brooks, Paris (acquired 19 November 1928).
4. Esther Robles Gallery, Los Angeles (on consignment from the above, 1964).
5. Valerie Neel, Malibu (by inheritance from Alden Brooks, 1965).
6. Sale, Christie’s, London, 9 July 1965, lot 88.
7. Wilkinsen (acquired at the above sale); Arthur Tooth & Sons, Ltd., London.
8. Private collection, Toronto (acquired 30 October 1965).
9. Sale, Sotheby’s, New York, Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale, 3 November 2008, N08485, lot 44 (estimate USD 1,500,000–2,000,000; sold USD 1,874,500). The lot note recorded forthcoming inclusion in the MR catalogue under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Institute.
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.

• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1929, p. 27 (as Tête de femme, oil on canvas).¹
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1956, no. 167.²
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 182 (dated 1917; as oil on canvas).³

Exhibitions

• Pasadena Art Museum, A View of the Century, 1964, no. 24 (circa 1916).

Notes

This investigation marks the work as not located in the D’Atri papers.

This investigation records holes at the corners of the support. Four corners are recorded; two holes are described as half covered by restoration.

This investigation records a drawn ear painted over the colour.

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