Boy in a sailor suit

Identification

Published titles

English: Boy in a sailor suit / Boy with a white collar / Seated boy.
French: Garçon au col blanc.

Date

1917. The date 1917 is inscribed at bottom right and is almost lost, visible only when unframed. Lipchitz 1954 dated the work 1918.

Medium

Oil on canvas.

Dimensions

92.1 × 60.3 cm.

Signature

Signed modigliani at top right and dated 1917 at bottom right.

Present location

Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, inv. BF369. This investigation records that the painting has not left the Barnes premises since the 1920s.

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. Zamaron Collection, Paris? (not listed in the Zamaron sale of 1920).
2. Paul Guillaume, Paris.
3. Sold by Guillaume to Albert C. Barnes in 1922 or 1923?
4. Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, inv. BF369.

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. 25; 1956, no. 151 (dated 1917; unknown collection).¹
• Jacques Lipchitz, 1954, pl. 64, as Seated boy, dated 1918.²
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 307.³
• Ambrogio Ceroni and Leone Piccioni, 1970, no. 212 (dated 1917; Barnes Collection).⁴
• Osvaldo Patani, 1991–94, no. 218 (the bibliography assembled for this investigation also cites no. 183).⁵
• Judith F. Dolkart, Martha Lucy and Derek Gillman, The Barnes Foundation: Masterworks, New York, Skira Rizzoli, 2012.
• Victoria Soto Caba, 2007.⁶

Exhibitions

• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Exhibition of Contemporary European Paintings and Sculpture, 1923.
• This investigation records no subsequent loans.

Notes

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

An infrared image published in this investigation shows the drawn contour.

This investigation records holes at the corners of the support. Two covered by restoration but visible under infrared.

This investigation records a drawn ear painted over the colour.

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