Gypsy woman with a baby (National Gallery of Art)

Identification

Published titles

English: Gypsy woman with a baby (National Gallery of Art); Gypsy woman with a baby; Mother and child; The Italian.
French: La bohémienne; Maternité.

Date

1918, unconfirmed. The National Gallery of Art currently titles the canvas Roma Woman with Baby and dates it 1919. Lanthemann dates it 1917. This investigation also suggests a date near 1916–17.

Medium

Oil on canvas.

Dimensions

115.9 × 73 cm.

Signature

Signed modigliani at top right.

Present location

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., inv. 1963.10.174. Chester Dale Collection (bequest 1963). The museum dimensions, 115.9 × 73 cm, match the figure used here.

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. E. Bernheim Collection, Paris.
2. Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, acquired 5 October 1921, inv. 22851.
3. Paul Guillaume, Paris, acquired 27 May 1924 (9,736 francs).
4. Chester Dale Collection, New York, acquired 1928.
5. National Gallery of Art, Washington, inv. 1963.10.174. Chester Dale 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.

• Giovanni Scheiwiller, Arte Moderna Italiana no. 8, Milan, Hoepli, 1927, pl. 15.
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1929 presumed catalogue, p. 54.¹
• Maud Dale, Modigliani, New York, Knopf, 1929, pl. 1.²
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1956, no. 341, dated 1919.³
• Ambrogio Ceroni, 1958, no. 135.⁴
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 243, dated 1917.⁵
• Ambrogio Ceroni and Leone Piccioni, 1970, no. 247, dated 1918.⁶
• Christian Parisot, 1991, no. 20/1918.⁷
• Osvaldo Patani, 1991–94, no. 259, dated 1918.⁸

Exhibitions

• Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Modigliani, 1922, no. 26, as La bohémienne (the only work reproduced in that catalogue).
• Venice, XIII Biennale, Modigliani retrospective, 1922, no. 10, as Madre e figlio – La zingara.
• New York, Wildenstein, Loan Exhibition of Modern French Art from the Chester Dale Collection, 1928, no. 28.
• Venice, Biennale, Mostra retrospettiva di Modigliani, 1930, no. 19, as Maternità.
• New York, Demotte, 1931, no. 3.
• Chicago, Art Institute, A Century of Progress, 1933, no. 703.
• Chicago, Art Institute, Twentieth Century French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection, extended loan 1943–1952.
• Cleveland / Museum of Modern Art, New York, Modigliani–Soutine, 1951.
• Washington, National Gallery of Art, The Chester Dale Bequest, 1965.
• Washington, National Gallery of Art, Modigliani: An Anniversary Exhibition, 1983–84.
• Washington, National Gallery of Art, From Impressionism to Modernism: The Chester Dale Collection, 2010–12.

Notes

D’Atri papers no. 79 is recorded in this investigation against this canvas as Tête de femme, dated 1917–18, Duveen, London, 1933. The same D’Atri number is also attached to w-37 in this investigation; both readings are kept as published.

Bernheim-Jeune issued 200 aquatints of this painting in 1927.

This investigation records a drawn ear painted over the colour.

This investigation records a related small head 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.