Head of a Woman (Lunia Czechowska)

Identification

Published titles

English: Head of a Woman (Lunia Czechowska); Head of a Woman; Lunia.
French: La Czechowska.

Date

Pfannstiel dates the work 1916–17. Lanthemann dates it 1919. This investigation groups it with the 1918–19 portraits of Lunia Czechowska.

Medium

Oil on canvas.

Dimensions

Recorded as 56 × 48 cm (Carli; Pfannstiel). Lanthemann gives a 20F format, 73 × 60 cm. Both readings are left on record.

Signature

Signed modigliani at top right.

Present location

Collection unknown.

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. Paul Guillaume, Paris.
2. Regnault Collection, Paris? (still recorded there in 1958).
3. Lefèvre-Foinet Collection, Paris?
4. Bernheim-Jeune, Paris.
5. Thereafter unrecorded.

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.

• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1929 presumed catalogue, p. 14.¹
• Enzo Carli, 1952, size 56 × 48 cm.²
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1956, no. 93, as a woman’s bust, dated 1916–17, size 56 × 48 cm.³
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 343, dated 1919.⁴

Exhibitions

• Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, L’École de Paris, 1932.
• Rome, VI Quadriennale, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, 1951–52, no. 25.
• Amsterdam, 1958? A photograph of the painting in an Amsterdam exhibition of 1958 is held by the Nationaal Archief.

Notes

Not listed in the D’Atri papers.

Pfannstiel’s 1916–17 date does not mention the group of closely related Lunia compositions usually placed in 1918–19. This investigation reproduces several of those works for comparison.

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