Woman in black (crossed hands)

Identification

Published titles

English: Portrait of a woman / Woman in black / Woman seated / The crossed hands.

Date

1918, unconfirmed. The museum dates the canvas 1917. Pfannstiel dates it 1917.

Medium

Oil on canvas.

Dimensions

91.5 × 60 cm. The museum dossier gives the same size and dates the canvas 1917, as Femme en robe noire (inv. 1988-0035, deposit of the Fondation Jean-Louis Prévost). A later notice gives 92 × 60 cm.

Signature

Signed modigliani at top right.

Present location

Musée d’art et d’histoire, Geneva (inv. 1988-0035), deposit of the Fondation Jean-Louis Prévost since 1988.

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. Paul Guillaume, Paris.
3. Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris.
4. Pellequer Collection, Paris, until 1927.
5. Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Pellequer sale, 29 October 1927, lot 108.
6. Netter Collection, Paris.
7. Chester Dale Collection, New York (by 1929; still recorded in 1941).
8. Jean-Louis Prévost Collection?
9. Musées d’art et d’histoire, Geneva, deposit of the Fondation Jean-Louis Prévost, 1988.

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, “Modigliani,” L’Amour de l’Art, 1922, no. 1, p. 21, as The crossed hands.
• Gazette de l’Hôtel Drouot, 1 November 1927, no. 114, as Buste de femme.
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1929 presumed catalogue, p. 28.¹
• Maud Dale, 1929, no. 42, as Woman in black, Chester Dale Collection.²
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1956, no. 175, as Woman seated, dated 1917.³
• Joseph Lanthemann, supplement / expertise dated 25 May 1982.⁴
• Christian Parisot, Modigliani, Graphis Arte, 1988, p. 181, dated 1918.
• Claude Lapaire, Musée d’art et d’histoire, Genève, Geneva–Zurich, 1991, pp. 118–119, no. 156.
• Connaissance des Arts, no. 684, July–August 2010, pp. 5, 74.

Exhibitions

• Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Modigliani, 1922, no. 8, as crossed hands.
• Venice, XIII Biennale, Sala XII, 1922, no. 2 (163675).
• Barcelona, Centro Cultural de la Caixa de Pensions, 1983, no. 27, dated 1917–18.
• Madrid, Sala de exposiciones de la Caja de Pensiones, 1983, no. 27, dated 1917–18.
• Saint-Tropez, Musée de l’Annonciade, Amedeo Modigliani: Sans légende, 2010.
• Biarritz, Espace Bellevue, Ramiro Arrue, entre avant-garde et tradition, 2017.
• Geneva, Musée d’art et d’histoire, La collection Beaux-Arts revisitée, 2018.

Notes

Presence in the D’Atri papers is unconfirmed in this investigation.

The 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.