Identification

Published titles

English: Oscar Miestchaninoff (Mechan); Mechan; Oscar Miestchaninoff; Russian sculptor Oscar Miestchaninoff.

Date

1917.

Medium

Oil on canvas? This investigation also records cardboard as a probable support.

Dimensions

46 × 33 cm?

Signature

Signed modigliani at top left in light blue; the word MECHAN at upper right next to the head; dated 1917 at top left.

Present location

Private collection / Helly Nahmad 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. Sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 9 February 1925, lot 61.
3. Félix Fénéon, Paris (1929 confirmation required?).
   
4. Sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, collection Félix Fénéon, 4 December 1941, lot 66, pl. 16, as Russian sculptor Oscar Miestchaninoff (sold 60,000 French francs).
5. Private collection, Montreal.
6. Perls Galleries, New York.
7. Private collection, Geneva.
8. Helly Nahmad Collection, London?

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. 30.¹
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1956, no. 111.²
• Ambrogio Ceroni and Leone Piccioni, 1970, no. 162.³
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 170 (this investigation marks Lanthemann as NO?).⁴
• Osvaldo Patani, 1991–94, no. 165.⁵
• R. Chiappini, ed., Lugano catalogue, Skira, 1999, p. 82, no. 33.
• Mason Klein, 2004, p. 138, pl. 54.⁶
• Simonetta Fraquelli, 2006, p. 99, no. 20.⁷

Exhibitions

• Lyon, Galerie des Archers, 1928, no. 28.
• Moscow, Academy of Science and Arts, 1928, no. 72.
• Frankfurt, Kunstverein, 1930.
• Belgrade, Prince Paul Museum, 1936, no. 73.
• Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1981, no. 39.
• Verona and Turin, Incontri italiani, 1984–85, no. 50; Verona, 1988.
• Lugano, Museo d’Arte Moderna, 1999, no. 33.
• New York, Toronto and Washington, Modigliani: Beyond the Myth, 2004–05.
• London, Royal Academy of Arts, 2006, no. 20.

Notes

D’Atri papers no. 301, dated 1917; Fénéon Collection since 1929.

This investigation records a drawn ear painted over the colour.

This investigation records other published portraits of the same sitter.

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