Reclining nude with coral necklace

Identification

Published titles

English: Reclining nude with coral necklace; Nude with necklace (one eye closed).
French: Nu couché.

Date

1917.

Medium

Oil on canvas. The museum file records an inexpensive, coarsely woven linen and jute support.

Dimensions

66.5 × 101.1 cm after the 1960 lining. Wayne: 65.4 × 99.4 cm. Klein: 64.4 × 99.4 cm. The museum notes that the vertical dimension of the stretcher was increased by 1.1 cm in 1960; the original height is given as 64.4 cm.

Signature

Signed modigliani at top right in white. Written in black paint on the reverse of the original canvas at upper left (now obscured by the lining): Modigliani. / 3 Joseph Bara. / Paris. / 1917.

Present location

Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Ohio, inv. AMAM 1955.59. Gift of Joseph and Enid Bissett, 1955.

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.
3. Sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Carco collection, 2 March 1925, lot 64.
4. Galerie Bing, Paris (1925).
5. Félix Fénéon Collection, Paris.
6. Sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Fénéon collection, 30 March 1947, lot 95.
7. Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York.
8. Joseph Bissett Collection, New York (acquired from the above, 1950).
9. Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, inv. AMAM 1955.59. Gift of Joseph and Enid Bissett, 1955.

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, pl. 19.¹
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1929, p. 23.²
• James Thrall Soby, 1951, p. 52.³
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1956, no. 143 (dated 1917).⁴
• Ambrogio Ceroni, 1958, no. 119.⁵
• Wolfgang Stechow, 1967, p. 109, fig. 126.⁶
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 215.⁷
• Ambrogio Ceroni and Leone Piccioni, 1970, no. 185.⁸
• Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1981, no. 46.
• Angela Ceroni, 1989, p. 60, no. 12.⁹
• Christian Parisot, 1991, no. 44/1917.¹⁰
• Osvaldo Patani, 1991–94, no. 199.¹¹
• Kenneth Wayne, 2002, p. 99, no. 22.¹²
• Mason Klein, 2004, p. 132, pl. 47.¹³
• Simonetta Fraquelli, 2006, p. 56, pl. 31.¹⁴

Exhibitions

• Paris, Berthe Weill Gallery, 1917 (unconfirmed in this investigation).
• Paris, Galerie Bing et Cie, 1925 (number not recorded).
• Zurich, Kunsthaus, Italienische Maler, 1927, no. 99.
• Cleveland Museum of Art and New York, Museum of Modern Art, 1951.
• New York, Fine Arts Associates, 1954, no. 10.
• Cincinnati, Chicago, Milwaukee and Atlanta, 1959–60, no. 16.
• Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Academy, and London, Tate Gallery, 1963, no. 36.
• New York, Perls Galleries, The Nudes of Modigliani, 1966, no. 3.
• Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1981, no. 46.
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Modigliani and the Artists of Montparnasse, 2003, no. 22.
• Washington, The Phillips Collection, Modigliani: Beyond the Myth, 2005.

Notes

D’Atri papers no. 239, dated 1917, size 65 × 100 cm, titled Nu au collier (un oeil clos); Zborowski to Fénéon.

The museum curatorial file, as published in this investigation, records that the original canvas was lined in 1960 and mounted on an ICA-type spring stretcher; the dimensions were enlarged slightly to fit the existing frame. A thin dark-grey oil ground is exposed between forms in the lower portion. In 1983 discoloured varnish and overpaint (chiefly at the model’s left wrist and belly) were removed and minor losses associated with a small puncture at the wrist were inpainted.

This investigation records a drawn ear painted over the colour.

This investigation records the same sitter in other published works, including a comparison with paintings in the Guggenheim Museum and a private collection.

The Allen Memorial Art Museum confirms Nude with Coral Necklace, 1917, oil on canvas, 66.5 × 101.1 cm, inv. 1955.59, gift of Joseph and Enid Bissett. The museum records the verso inscription “Modigliani / 3 Joseph Bara / Paris / 1917,” now obscured by the 1960 lining, and the 1.1 cm increase in height at that lining. Its published provenance runs Zborowski; Francis Carco; 1925 sale to Galerie Bing; Félix Fénéon; Pierre Matisse Gallery, sold 1950 to the Bissetts.

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