Gypsy woman with a baby (Denver)

Identification

Published titles

English: Gypsy woman with a baby (Denver); Gypsy woman with a baby; Bust of a woman with a sailor collar.
French: Bohémienne; Maternité; Fille du peuple (au col marin).

Date

1918, unconfirmed. The Denver Art Museum dates the canvas 1918. Lanthemann dates it 1917. Pfannstiel dates it 1919.

Medium

Oil on canvas.

Dimensions

60 × 45.4 cm (sight). The Denver Art Museum object record gives about 61.4 × 46.7 cm. Tokyo exhibition and Patani: 61.3 × 46.4 cm. Wayne and Klein: 61 × 46 cm.

Signature

Signed modigliani at top right.

Present location

Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado, inv. 1966.180, as Portrait de Femme, 1918. The Charles Francis Hendrie Memorial Collection, 1966. The museum records the signature as “Modigliani,” upper right.

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. Georges Bernheim Collection, Paris.
3. Dr R. Rothlin, Basel, 1934? (this investigation, unconfirmed).
4. Jacques Seligmann, New York.
5. Theodore Schempp Collection, New York.
6. Marion Hendrie, Cincinnati (purchased from Theodore Schempp, 4 November 1944; Schempp held the canvas on consignment from Jacques Seligmann). Gift to the Denver Art Museum, 1966.
7. Denver Art Museum, inv. 1966.180.

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 presumed catalogue, p. 51.¹
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1956, no. 328 bis, as Fille du peuple (au col marin), dated 1919.²
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 242, dated 1917.³
• Ambrogio Ceroni and Leone Piccioni, 1970, no. 246, dated 1918.⁴
• Osvaldo Patani, 1991–94, no. 258, dated 1918.⁵
• R. Chiappini (ed.), Lugano exhibition catalogue, 1999, no. 43. This investigation records that Decrooq reused bibliography and exhibition history belonging to the Metropolitan Museum sailor-collar portrait.
• Kenneth Wayne, 2002, no. 29.⁶
• Mason Klein, 2004, pl. 61.⁷

Exhibitions

• Cleveland Museum of Art / Museum of Modern Art, New York, Modigliani–Soutine, 1951.
• Cincinnati, Contemporary Arts Center, Collection of Marion Hendrie, 1954, no. 25.
• Cincinnati / Chicago / Milwaukee, Amedeo Modigliani, 1959, no. 25.
• Denver Art Museum, Collection of Marion Hendrie, 1966, no. 26.
• Liège, Musée Saint-Georges, 1980, no. 18.
• Tokyo / Nagoya, Modigliani, 1985, no. 99.
• Lugano, Museo d’Arte Moderna, 1999, no. 43.
• Buffalo / Fort Worth / Los Angeles, Modigliani and the Artists of Montparnasse, 2002–03, no. 29.
• Washington, The Phillips Collection, Modigliani: Beyond the Myth, 2005.
• Bonn, Amedeo Modigliani: Ein Mythos der Moderne, 2009, no. 97.

Notes

Possible identity with D’Atri papers no. 90, as Jeune fille, dated 1919, Rothlin Collection, Basel, 1934.

This investigation records holes at the corners of the canvas.

This investigation records a drawn ear painted over the colour.

This investigation records a second signature, probably from a previous painting on the same support. Infrared examination is not published in this investigation.

This investigation records a related small head of the same sitter.

The Lugano 1999 and Parisot 2006 entries are recorded as mixing this canvas with the Metropolitan Museum sailor-collar portrait.

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