Identification

Published titles

English: Woman with blue eyes; Avant Ohara.

Date

1917–1918–1919? Lanthemann and Patani dated the canvas 1917. The 1981 Paris museum catalogue dated it 1918. MR, Luxembourg 2002, dated it 1919.

Medium

Oil on canvas? (as marked in this investigation).

Dimensions

81 × 54 cm.

Signature

Signed modigliani at top right.

Present location

Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, inv. AMVP 1681. Bequest of Maurice Girardin, 1953.

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. Maurice Girardin.
2. Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, inv. AMVP 1681 (also recorded as AMP 1681), Girardin bequest, 1953.

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.

• Bernard Dorival, Les peintres du vingtième siècle, Paris, Pierre Tisné, 1957, p. 47.
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 218, dated 1917.¹
• Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, exhibition catalogue, 1981, pp. 40, 168, no. 98, dated 1918.²
• Christian Parisot, Modigliani, il segno, Florence, Electa, 1990, p. 153.
• Christian Parisot, 1991, no. 38/1918.³
• Osvaldo Patani, 1991–94, no. 224, dated 1917.⁴
• Christian Parisot, Modigliani, Paris, Pierre Terrail, 1992, p. 93, dated 1917.
• MR, Luxembourg 2002, no. 97, pp. 376–377, dated 1919.⁵

Exhibitions

• Paris, Petit Palais, 1953–60.
• Paris, Petit Palais, Collection Maurice Girardin, 1954, no. 257.
• Metz–Nancy, 1958, no. 38.
• Marseille, Musée Cantini, 1958, no. 33.
• Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, 1959, no. 37.
• Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1960–present.
• Tokyo, 1961–62, no. 316.
• Duisburg, 1965, no. 431.
• Montreal, 1967, no. 29.
• Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1981, no. 98.
• Barcelona / Madrid, curated by Christian Parisot, 1983, no. 24.
• Tokyo / Nagoya, 1985, no. 108.
• São Paulo, MASP, 1998.
• Paris, Musée du Luxembourg, 2002, no. 97.
• Bochum, Kunstmuseum, 2003–04.
• Jackson / Miami, Paris Moderne, 2004–05.
• Nagoya / Toyama / Osaka / Taipei, La vie moderne, 2005–06.
• Kobe / Okazaki / Kumamoto, 2006.
• Turin, Galleria d’Arte Moderna, 2015.

Notes

This investigation marks the work as not located in the D’Atri papers. The canvas is absent from Ceroni.

The 1981 Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris catalogue published a laboratory study of this canvas by Suzy Delbourgo and Lola Faillant-Dumas under Madeleine Hours (Laboratoire de Recherche des Musées de France). The published text compared the portrait with other works in the museum and stated that few of the usual characteristics of Modigliani were found: impasto on the face, neck and hands was brushed in a nervous handwriting that recalled the painter, while the original contour that ordinarily encircles the volumes was almost non-existent.²

The same Girardin bequest included Lunia Czechowska with a fan (later stolen and recorded as probably lost) and Femme aux boucles d’oreilles, which the same 1981 laboratory study published as a forgery.

This investigation records visible-light, negative and infrared photographs of the signature and details of the face, eyelids, nose, neck, hand and hair.

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