Identification

Published titles

English: Lunia Czechowska; Head of Lunia Czechowska, frontal.
French: Madame Tsechowska.

Date

1917. Some later exhibitions date the work 1917–18.

Medium

Oil on cardboard. Parisot first records oil on paper and later oil on canvas. Pfannstiel records canvas. MR records oil on canvas, marouflé on cardboard.

Dimensions

46 × 38 cm. Pfannstiel: 55 × 46 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. Galerie Bing, Paris.
3. Lepoutre Collection, Paris.
4. Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (1952).
5. Bourdon Collection, Paris (1952–1990).
6. Sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Guy Loudmer, paintings from Madame Bourdon’s collection, 25 March 1990, lot 35 (sold 22,500,000 French francs).
7. 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. 30, no. 4.¹
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1956, no. 185 (as oil on canvas; dated 1917).²
• Ambrogio Ceroni, 1958, no. 140.³
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 234 (as oil on canvas; dated 1917).⁴
• Ambrogio Ceroni and Leone Piccioni, 1970, no. 172 (as oil on canvas; dated 1917).⁵
• Christian Parisot, 1991, no. 23/1917 (as oil on paper).⁶
• Osvaldo Patani, 1991–94, no. 177.⁷
• MR, 2002, p. 296 (cited as Ceroni no. 172).⁸

Exhibitions

• Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Peintres de portraits, 1952, no. 42, as Madame Tsechowska.
• Bern, Kunsthalle, Modigliani, Campigli, Sironi, 1955, no. 19.
• Paris, Galerie Charpentier, Cent tableaux de Modigliani, 1958, no. 67.
• Frankfurt, Steinernes Haus, 1963, no. 21.
• Martigny, Fondation Pierre Gianadda, 1990, no. 73 (dated 1917–18; oil on cardboard).
• Madrid, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, 2008 (dated 1917–18; this investigation notes an incorrect support of wood).
• Bonn, 2009, no. 96 (as oil on canvas).

Notes

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

This investigation places the work beside two other published portraits of Lunia Czechowska: Ceroni no. 170 (81 × 45 cm, oil on canvas) and Ceroni no. 171 (72.8 × 45 cm, oil on canvas).

This investigation records a drawn ear painted over the colour.

This investigation cites a published press report of 23 September 2001 concerning later ownership of the work. No further comment is added here.

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