Identification

Published titles

English: Seated nude.
French: Nu assis sur un divan; La belle romaine.

Date

1917. Lanthemann dates the work 1916. Ceroni 1958 dates it circa 1917–18.

Medium

Oil on canvas.

Dimensions

100 × 65 cm.

Signature

Signed modigliani at bottom right. An infrared detail of the signature is reproduced in this investigation.

Present location

Private collection (this investigation records China or Hong Kong).

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. Sabouraud Collection, Paris (acquired from the above, 1929).
3. Renand Collection, Paris.
4. Sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Renand sale, 20 November 1987, lot 6.
5. Private collection, Asia.
6. Sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 11 November 1999, lot 125 (sold USD 15,250,000).
7. Private collection, Europe.
8. Sale, Sotheby’s, New York, Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale, 2 November 2010, N08675, lot 7 (sold USD 68,962,500).
9. 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. 24.¹
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1956, no. 147.²
• Ambrogio Ceroni, 1958, no. 129 (circa 1917–18; titled Nu assis au divan).³
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 141 (dated 1916).⁴
• Ambrogio Ceroni and Leone Piccioni, 1970, no. 192 (dated 1917).⁵
• Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1981, no. 54.
• Angela Ceroni, 1989, no. 18, p. 71.⁶
• Christian Parisot, 1991, no. 33/1917.⁷
• Osvaldo Patani, 1991–94, no. 195.⁸
• Nancy Ireson and Simonetta Fraquelli, 2017, p. 135.⁹
• Aviva Burnstock, Isabelle Duvernois and Carol Stringari, 2018.¹⁰

Exhibitions

• Unconfirmed but probably:
  Paris, Galerie Berthe Weill /Exposition des Peintures et des dessins de Modigliani, December 1917. titled "Amaisa" no. 21.
• Zurich, Kunsthaus, Italienische Maler, 1927, no. 106.
• Paris, Galerie Charpentier, 1946 and 1947.
• Paris, Musée national d’Art Moderne, L’Art moderne italien, 1950, no. 49 (titled Nu assis).
• Rome, VI Quadriennale, 1952, no. 13.
• Tokyo, Osaka, Sapporo and Nagoya, La Ruche, 1978, no. 56; Paris, Musée Jacquemart-André, 1978–79, no. 94.
• Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1981, no. 54.
• Düsseldorf and Zurich, 1991, no. 56.
• London, Tate Modern, 2017–18.

Notes

D’Atri papers no. 241, dated 1917, titled Nu assis; Sabouraud 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.

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.