The two girls

Identification

Published titles

English: The two girls; The two sisters.
French: Les deux filles; Les deux soeurs.

Date

1918, unconfirmed. Several early publications date the canvas 1917.

Medium

Oil on canvas.

Dimensions

100 × 65.1 cm. Christie’s 2009: 100.2 × 65.1 cm.

Signature

Unsigned. This investigation records the canvas as probably unfinished.

Present location

Private collection? Last named public sale: Christie’s, London, 4 February 2015, lot 15, sold for £7,586,500 (premium; about USD 11,493,548). A Nahmad Collection location is noted in this investigation as unconfirmed.

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. Jonas Netter Collection, Paris (before 1926 to 2009).
3. Christie’s, London, 4 February 2009, lot 10 / sale 7701. Estimate USD 4,987,500–7,837,500; sold USD 9,400,566.
4. Private collection, Europe.
5. Christie’s, London, 4 February 2015, lot 15 / sale 10378. Estimate £6,000,000–8,000,000; sold for £7,586,500 (premium; about USD 11,493,548).
6. Private collection?

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 Salmon, 1926, pl. 13, dated 1917.¹
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1929 presumed catalogue, p. 20, dated 1917.²
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1956, no. 130, as The two girls, dated 1917, Netter Collection.³
• Ambrogio Ceroni, 1965, no. 212, dated 1918.⁴
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 292.⁵
• Ambrogio Ceroni and Leone Piccioni, 1970, no. 242, dated 1918.⁶
• Werner Schmalenbach, 1990, no. 67.⁷
• Osvaldo Patani, 1991–94, no. 254.⁸
• Christian Parisot, 1991, no. 21/1918.⁹
• R. Chiappini (ed.), Lugano exhibition catalogue, 1999, no. 51.

Exhibitions

• Zurich, Kunsthaus, Amedeo Modigliani, curated by Arthur Pfannstiel, 1930, no. 138.
• Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, 1933, no. 28.
• Basel, Kunsthalle, 1934, no. 20.
• Paris, Galerie de France, 1945–46, no. 7, dated 1917.
• Paris, Galerie Charpentier, 1958, no. 56, dated 1917.
• Marseille, Musée Cantini, 1958, no. 15.
• Düsseldorf / Zurich, 1991, no. 67.
• Japanese tour, Modigliani et son époque, 1997–98, no. 3.
• Lugano, Museo d’Arte Moderna, 1999, no. 51.

Notes

D’Atri papers no. 28, as Les deux soeurs (les deux filles), unsigned, 1917, 100 × 65 cm, Netter Collection; repeated as no. 206 with no further data.

This investigation records a drawn ear painted over the colour.

The absence of a signature is recorded in this investigation with the suggestion that the canvas may have been left unfinished.

This investigation records a related standing girl in a black pinafore.

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