Identification

Published titles

English: Reclining nude with outstretched arms; Reclining nude; Reclining nude with hands behind the head; Red nude.
French: Nu couché.
Italian: Nudo rosso.

Date

1917? Other published sources give 1918–19. Lanthemann dates the work 1916.

Medium

Oil on canvas.

Dimensions

59.9 × 92 cm.

Signature

Signed modigliani at top right in white.

Present location

Liu Yiqian Collection, China.

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. Netter Collection, Paris.
3. Riccardo and Cesarina Gualino Collection, Turin (acquired in Paris, 2 October 1928).
4. Società Anonima Finanziaria, Zaccaria Pisa, Milan; collection sale, Galleria Pesaro, Milan, 5–8 February 1934, lot 1851.
5. Pietro Feroldi Collection, Brescia (by 1935).
6. Gianni Mattioli Collection, Milan (acquired from the above, 1949).
7. Mattioli descent, Switzerland, 1987.
8. Sale, Christie’s, New York, The Artist’s Muse: A Curated Evening Sale, 9 November 2015 (sold USD 170,405,000).
9. Liu Yiqian Collection, China.

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. 25, no. 4.¹
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1956, no. 152.²
• Ambrogio Ceroni, 1958, no. 124.³
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 166 (dated 1916).⁴
• Ambrogio Ceroni and Leone Piccioni, 1970, no. 198 (dated 1917).⁵
• Angela Ceroni, 1989, no. 23, pp. 80–81.⁶
• Christian Parisot, 1991, no. 47/1917 (this investigation notes an incorrect provenance in Parisot).⁷
• Osvaldo Patani, 1991–94, no. 206 (this investigation notes an incorrect exhibition history in Patani).⁸
• Mason Klein, 2004, pp. 32, 40, fig. 7.⁹
• Simonetta Fraquelli, 2006, pp. 100–101, no. 21.¹⁰
• Aviva Burnstock, Isabelle Duvernois and Carol Stringari, 2018.¹¹

Exhibitions

• Paris, Galerie Bing et Cie, 1925 (number not recorded).
• Venice, Biennale, sala Venturi, 1930, no. 2.
• Budapest, 1936, no. 314; Rome, Galleria di Roma, 1937, no. 11.
• Brussels, Amsterdam, Paris and London, modern Italian art, 1950.
• Cleveland Museum of Art and New York, Museum of Modern Art, 1951.
• Milan, Palazzo Reale, 1958, no. 34.
• Travelling exhibition, Masters of Modern Italian Art from the Collection of Gianni Mattioli, 1967–72, no. 69.
• Liège, Musée Saint-Georges, 1980, no. 30.
• Düsseldorf and Zurich, 1991, no. 58.
• London, Royal Academy of Arts, 2006, no. 21.
• Turin, Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Modigliani e la Bohème di Parigi, 2015.

Notes

D’Atri papers no. 212/1, dated 1917, titled Nu couché (les mains derrière la tête); Netter Collection, 1929?

This investigation records holes at the corners of the support. Two corners are recorded; the remaining holes are described as probably covered by restoration.

This investigation records a high-gloss varnish layer and cites published statements that Modigliani varnished some nudes to imitate the surface of old-master paintings. Later varnish layers have also been identified on other works. No conservation report for this canvas is published in this investigation. This investigation also reproduces a comparison of images before and after the 2015 sale and records a change in the saturation of the red-orange flesh. No conservation report is published there.

A 2018 technical study of Modigliani’s painted nudes of 1916–17 (Burnstock, Duvernois and Stringari, The Burlington Magazine) published a limited pigment range used across the analysed nudes: lead white with a low proportion of zinc, vermilion, an organic red lake, iron-oxide pigments (sienna, ochre, umber), Prussian blue, French ultramarine, bone black and viridian. The study notes that not every analysed nude contains every pigment in that list.

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