Woman with earrings

Identification

Published titles

English: Woman with earrings / Woman bust / Unknown woman.

Date

1917. Pfannstiel 1956 dated no. 41 to 1915; Chester Dale 1929 dated the work 1918; Ceroni 1970 dates it 1917.

Medium

Oil on canvas.

Dimensions

55.3 × 33 cm.

Signature

Signed modigliani at top right.

Present location

National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, inv. 1963.10.173 (Chester Dale bequest, 1963).

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. Léon Bakst, Paris.
2. Frederick Manaud, Paris.
3. Galerie Bing, Paris, sold 13 April 1928 to Chester Dale.
4. Chester Dale Collection, New York.
5. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, inv. 1963.10.173, bequest 1963.

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.

• André Levinson, Histoire de Léon Bakst, Paris, Henri Reynaud, 1924, pl. 1.
• Giovanni Scheiwiller, Arte moderna italiana, no. 8, Milan, Hoepli, 1927, pl. 8.
• Chester Dale, 1929, no. 39 (dated 1918).¹
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1929, p. 13.²
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1956, no. 41 (dated 1915).³
• Ambrogio Ceroni, 1958, no. 91.⁴
• Jacques Lipchitz, 1954, pl. 59.⁵
• Alfred Werner, 1966, no. 18, p. 21.⁶
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 197.⁷
• Ambrogio Ceroni and Leone Piccioni, 1970, no. 165 (dated 1917).⁸
• Christian Parisot, 1991, no. 26/1917.⁹
• Osvaldo Patani, 1991–94, no. 168 (dated 1917).¹⁰
• National Gallery of Art summary and illustrated catalogues, 1965–85.

Exhibitions

• New York, Museum of French Art, 100 Years of French Portraits from the Chester Dale Collection, 1928, no. 19.
• New York, Wildenstein, Loan Exhibition of Modern French Art from the Chester Dale Collection, 1928, no. 27.
• New York, Demotte, Amedeo Modigliani: Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings, 1931, no. 23.
• Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, 1933, no. 9 (dated 1915).
• Basel, Kunsthalle, 1934, no. 2.
• Chicago, Art Institute, Twentieth Century French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection, 1943–52, p. 39.
• Washington, National Gallery of Art, same collection, 1952, no. 41.
• Washington, National Gallery of Art, The Chester Dale Bequest, 1965.
• Washington, National Gallery of Art, Modigliani: An Anniversary Exhibition, 1983.

Notes

D’Atri papers no. 9, dated 1915 and corrected to 1918?

This investigation records holes at the four corners of the support. One hole is recorded as covered by restoration.

This investigation records a drawn ear painted over the colour.

A cardboard version of the same subject, signed and dated 1916, is recorded as once in the Chrysler Collection.

The National Gallery of Art holds the canvas as a Chester Dale bequest, 1963, inv. 1963.10.173. The dimensions in this file, 55.3 × 33 cm, are retained pending a fresh museum sheet.

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.