Moïse Kisling

Oil on canvas— 1915

Identification

Title

English: Moïse Kisling. French: Le peintre Kisling.

Date

1915

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

37 x 29 cm (Pfannstiel, Ceroni, Parisot, Klein, MR: 37 x 28 cm)

Signature

Signed “modigliani / 1915” with the inscription “KISLING”

Present location

Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, Italy (inv. no. 5037)

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. Unrecorded before Paul Guillaume
2. Paul Guillaume Collection, Paris (c. 1914/16–1929/30)
3. Galleria del Milione, Milan (1930)?
4. Della Laterna Collection, Milan?
5. Emilio Jesi Collection, Milan (1930–1976)
6. Sale: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 30 April 1941, Me Bellier, no. 7211, sold for 14,900 FF. The 1941 sale conflicts with the chain given above and indicates an incomplete wartime provenance.
7. Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan (inv. no. 5037); donated by Emilio and Maria Jesi in 1976

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.

• Pfannstiel, “catalogue présumé”, Modigliani. L’Art et la Vie, Seheur, Paris, 1929, p. 1, no. 1¹
• Georges-Michel, Les Montparnos, Paris, 1929
• Exh. cat., Associazione fra gli amatori e i cultori delle arti figurative contemporanee, Milan, 1946, pl. 5
• Carrieri, 12 opere di Amedeo Modigliani, Edizioni del Milione, Milan, 1947 and 1950, pl. 3
• Jedlicka, Modigliani, E. Rentsch, Zurich, 1953, pl. 17
• Lipchitz, Amedeo Modigliani, H. N. Abrams, New York, 1953, pl. 17 / 1954, pl. 18
• Haftmann, Malerei im 20. Jahrhundert, Munich, 1955, p. 289
• Pfannstiel, Modigliani et son œuvre, Paris, 1956, no. 44²
• Russoli, Amedeo Modigliani, Palazzo Reale, Milan, 1958, pl. 12
• Ceroni, Amedeo Modigliani: Peintre, Edizioni del Milione, 1958, no. 54³
• Scheiwiller, Arte Moderna Italiana no. 8: Amedeo Modigliani, Hoepli, 1958, pl. 32
• Werner, Amedeo Modigliani, H. N. Abrams, New York, 1966, pp. 90–91
• Lanthemann, Modigliani, catalogue raisonné, Barcelona, 1970, no. 102⁴
• Ceroni & Piccioni, I dipinti di Modigliani, Rizzoli, Milan, 1970, no. 98⁵
• Parisot, Catalogue raisonné Modigliani, Graphis Arte, 1991, no. 40/1915⁶
• Patani, Catalogo generale, Leonardo, Milan, 1991–94, no. 101⁷
• Decrooq–MR, L’Ange au visage grave, Musée du Luxembourg, Paris, 2002, pp. 216–217⁸
• Klein, Modigliani: Beyond the Myth, The Jewish Museum, 2004–2005, p. 123, pl. 38⁹
• Soto Caba, Modigliani, The Timeless Face, Libsa, Madrid, 2007¹⁰
• MR, La Collection Jonas Netter, Pinacothèque de Paris, 2012, p. 104 (there given as private collection, 37 x 28 cm)

Exhibitions

• Paris, Modigliani, Galerie Bing et Cie, 1925, no. 8, as Le peintre Kisling
• Paris, La grande peinture contemporaine à la collection Paul Guillaume, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, 1929
• Milan, Associazione fra gli amatori e i cultori delle arti figurative contemporanee, 1946, no. 5
• Brussels, Modigliani, Palais des Beaux-Arts, 1950, no. 64
• Amsterdam, Modigliani, Stedelijk Museum, 1950
• London, Tate Gallery, 1950
• Paris, Cent tableaux de Modigliani, Galerie Charpentier, 1958, no. 29
• Marseille, Musée Cantini, 1958, no. 6
• Milan, Mostra di Amedeo Modigliani, Palazzo Reale, 1958, no. 6
• Rome, Modigliani, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, 1959, no. 11
• Frankfurt, Steinernes Haus, 1963, no. 10
• Edinburgh, Modigliani, Royal Scottish Academy, 1963, no. 17
• London, Modigliani, Tate Gallery, 1963, no. 17
• Barcelona, Modigliani, Centro Cultural de la Caixa de Pensions, 1983, no. 20
• Madrid, Modigliani, Sala de exposiciones de la Caja de Pensiones, 1983, no. 20
• Livorno, Gli anni della scultura, Villa Maria, 1984, no. 29
• Tokyo, Modigliani, National Museum, 1985, no. 50
• Nagoya, Modigliani, Aichi Prefectural Art Gallery, 1985
• Verona, Modigliani a Montparnasse, Palazzo Forti, 1988
• Düsseldorf, Amedeo Modigliani: Malerei, Skulpturen, Zeichnungen, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, 1991, no. 29
• Zurich, Amedeo Modigliani, Kunsthaus, 1991, no. 29
• Paris, Modigliani: l’ange au visage grave, Musée du Luxembourg, 2002, no. 36
• Milan, Modigliani: l’ange au visage grave, Palazzo Reale, 2003, no. 28
• New York, Modigliani: Beyond the Myth, The Jewish Museum, 2004
• Genoa, Modigliani, Palazzo Ducale, 2017

Notes

Recorded as no. 271 in the d’Atri papers: oil on canvas, 37 x 28 cm, dated 1915, Guillaume collection by 1929.

The painting has pin holes at the four corners.

The work was shown at the Genoa exhibition of 2017 connected with the forgery scandal and was damaged in the press coverage in which it was presented as a fake.

The painting appears in the reconstruction of the Guillaume collections associated with the Musée de l’Orangerie.

A 1941 Drouot sale as no. 7211 (14,900 FF) is incompatible with an unbroken Jesi ownership from 1930; the wartime transfer remains unresolved. The sale catalogue is recorded at Heidelberg University Library, Digi.ub.

Where sources disagree, both readings are given. This is a working research page, not a catalogue raisonné.