The Burgundian woman

Identification

Published titles

English: The Burgundian woman / The young servant / Little servant girl / Chubby girl / The good Burgundian.

Date

1918? The museum dates the canvas circa 1916. MR dated it 1919. Pfannstiel dated it to the end of 1917.

Medium

Oil on canvas (this investigation asks whether the support is reused).

Dimensions

92.08 × 53.98 cm (Hôtel Drouot 1932: 91 × 53 cm).

Signature

Unsigned.

Present location

Minneapolis Institute of Art, gift of Mr and Mrs Samuel Maslon, 1959. The museum dates the canvas circa 1916 and records it as unsigned.

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. Gaston Bernheim Collection, Paris.
2. Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris.
3. André Lefèvre Gallery, Paris.
4. Hessel Collection, Paris.
5. Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 1 June 1932, no. 39, 91 × 53 cm, sold 29,000 FF.
6. Lefevre Gallery, London.
7. James Archdale Collection, England.
8. Duncan MacDonald Collection, London.
9. Dalzell Hatfield Gallery, Los Angeles, 7 July 1948.
10. Fanny Brice Collection, Los Angeles.
11. Temporary loan to the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
12. Samuel Maslon Collection, Palm Springs.
13. Minneapolis Institute of Art, gift of Mr and Mrs Samuel Maslon, 1959. The museum dates the canvas circa 1916 and records it as unsigned.

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.

• James Thrall Soby, Cleveland / MoMA, 1951, p. 51.
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1956, no. 321, 91 × 54 cm, dated end of 1917, Hessel Collection, Paris.¹
• MR, Luxembourg 2002, pp. 390–391, no. 104, dated 1919.²
• Christian Parisot, 2006 (mention at no. 33, the related bust).³
• Victoria Soto Caba, 2007.⁴

Exhibitions

• Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, 1922, no. 30, as La petite bonne? (this investigation).
• Venice, XIII Biennale, Modigliani retrospective, 1922, no. 12, as La Giovane Fantesca (no. 163673). MR, Le silence éternel, prints no. 11; this investigation notes that no. 11 in that exhibition list is a young boy.
• Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, 1933, no. 85.
• Basel, Kunsthalle, 1934, no. 70.
• Cleveland / New York, Modigliani–Soutine, 1951.
• Paris, Musée du Luxembourg, 2002, no. 104, dated 1919.

Notes

D’Atri papers no. 85, as La Jeune servante, 91 × 54 cm, “mediocre painting,” “Jessel” Collection, Paris.

The canvas is absent from Ceroni, Lanthemann and Patani.

This investigation records holes at the corners of the canvas. Three holes are visible; paint lies over them. This investigation treats this as consistent with a reused support. An earlier composition is recorded as visible in areas without the present paint layer; no X-ray is cited in this investigation for this canvas.

This investigation records a drawn ear painted over the colour.

The 1932 sale catalogue photograph shows a white or grey belt no longer visible. This investigation records an aggressive cleaning or restoration and asks whether a signature at upper right was lost then.

This investigation records a related bust (this investigation’s 1918-w-4) and publishes an overlay showing differences of hair, eye position, neck width and head volume.

A photograph records the canvas in the collection of the actress Fanny Brice, about 1948.

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.