Standing blonde nude

Identification

Published titles

English: Standing nude; Blonde Nude; Blonde Nude with the dropped chemise; Nude with shirt.
French: Nu blond; La môme Haricot rouge; La Bûche.

Date

1917. Pfannstiel 1956 dates the work 1918.

Medium

Oil on cardboard in this investigation. MR, Parisot, Patani, Ceroni, Lanthemann and Pfannstiel record canvas.

Dimensions

92 × 65.5 cm? MR: 92 × 64.8 cm. Ceroni, Parisot and Patani: 92 × 65 cm.

Signature

Signed modigliani at top right. An infrared examination published from the 1981 French-museums campaign is recorded as showing the dot of the second i merged with the preceding l.

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. Francis Carco Collection, Paris (recorded 1929).
3. Dutilleul Collection, Paris.
4. Hessel Collection, Paris (recorded 1933?).
5. Sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, liquidation of Galerie Druet, 2 March 1939, lot 158.
6. 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.

• Francis Carco, 1924.¹
• Giovanni Scheiwiller, Arte moderna italiana no. 8, Milan, 1927, pl. 10 (Carco Collection, titled Nudo biondo).
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1929, p. 42.²
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1956, no. 263 (dated 1918; Hessel Collection).³
• Ambrogio Ceroni, 1958, no. 123.⁴
• Ambrogio Ceroni and Leone Piccioni, 1970, no. 193.⁵
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 244.⁶
• Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1981, pp. 24–27.
• Christian Parisot, 1991, no. 29/1917 (92 × 65 cm).⁷
• Osvaldo Patani, 1991–94, no. 197 (92 × 65 cm; the source table gives no. 195).⁸
• MR, 2002, no. 63, p. 300 (92 × 64.8 cm).⁹
• Nancy Ireson and Simonetta Fraquelli, 2017, p. 143 (as oil on canvas).¹⁰

Exhibitions

• Paris, Berthe Weill Gallery, 1917 (unconfirmed).
• Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, 1933, no. 66 (dated 1918; as La môme Haricot rouge).
• Basel, Kunsthalle, 1934, no. 57.
• Paris, Galerie de France, 1945–46, no. 26 (91 × 65 cm).
• Marseille, Musée Cantini, 1958, no. 27 (this investigation marks the identification as unconfirmed).
• Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1981, no. 45.
• Paris, Musée du Luxembourg, 2002, no. 63; Milan, Palazzo Reale, 2003, no. 44.
• London, Tate Modern, 2017–18.

Notes

D’Atri papers no. 66, dated 1919, size first given as 91 × 65 cm and corrected in pencil to 116 × 73 cm; titled Nu debout; a further size 100 × 65 cm is marked as wrong. The card gives Bing 1929 to Bernheim-Jeune to Netter.

This investigation records that infrared, X-ray and pigment examinations published from the 1981 French-museums campaign were found to coincide with the known palette and methods; the body is described there as constructed with strong dabs.

The same sitter is recorded in a work dated 1918 by Ceroni (no. 267).

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