Identification

Title

Italian/English: Paul Guillaume Novo Pilota.

Date

1915

Medium

Oil on cardboard (Ceroni, Parisot: canvas & Parisot later oil on canvas glued to spare wood)

Dimensions

105 x 75 cm (Ceroni: 100 x 75)

Signature

Signed " MODIGLIANI" / and swastika symbol / 1915" bottom right - text "NOVO PILOTA with 2 lines in arrow end shape" in color white and green - Text "PAUL / GUILLAUME" in top left - Text " David's Star symbol / STELLA MARIS"

Present location

Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris, France (Inv. no. RF 1960-44)

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 Research Project 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
2. Mme. Walter (widow of Guillaume)
3. Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris, France (Inv. no. RF 1960-44)
4. Acquired 1957 - entered the museum in 1960

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.

• Waldemar, La grande peinture contemporaine a la collection Paul Guillaume, Paris, 1929, p. 139
• Georges-Michel, Les Montparnos, Paris, 1929, p. 53
• Dale, Modigliani, Knopf, New York, 1929, pl. 28
• Pfannstiel, "catalogue présumé" Modigliani. L'Art et la Vie. Preface de Louis Latourrettes, Seheur, Paris, 1929, p. 76, no. 1¹
• Basler, Modigliani. Editions G. Cres, Paris, 193, pl. 6
• San Lazzaro, Modigliani peintures, Les Éditions du Chêne, Paris, 1947, pl. 1
• San Lazzaro, Painting in France 1895 - 1949 , Harvill Press Ltd, London, 1949, p. 197
• Nicholson, 1948, pl. 1
• Descargues, Amedeo Modigliani. Braun, Paris, 1951, pl. 26
• San Lazzaro, Modigliani peintures, Les Éditions du Chêne, Paris, 1953, pl. 1
• Descargues, Amedeo Modigliani, Braun, Paris, 1954, pl. 26
• Pfannstiel, Modigliani et son oeuvre, étude critique et catalogue raisonne, Bibliothèque des Arts, Paris, 1956 - no. 40²
• Modigliani J. , Modigliani: Man and Myth, Orion Press, New York, 1958, p. 71³⁴
• Ceroni, Amedeo Modigliani: Peintre; Suivi des Souvenirs de Lunia Czechowska, Edizioni del Milione, 1958, no. 55⁵
• Gindertael, Shop libre diffusion, 1967, pl. 12
• Crespelle. Modigliani, les femmes, les amis, l’oeuvre, Presses de la Cité, Paris, 1969
• Ponente, Modigliani, Ed. Toray, Barcelona, 1969 - no. 20
• Lanthemann, Modigliani, catalogue raisonné: sa vie, son oeuvre, son art, G. Condal, Barcelona, 1970 - no. 110⁶
• Ceroni & Piccioni, Il dipinti di Modigliani, Rizzoli, Milano, 1970 - no. 100⁷
• Hubbard, Modigliani and the painters of Montparnasse, Lamplight Publ. New York, 1975, p., 22 pl. 12
• Fifield. Modigliani. New York, 1976, p. 254
• Guindertael, 1976,
• pl. 12
• Warnod, La Ruche et Montparnasse. 1978, p. 76
• Lanthemann-Parisot. MODIGLIANI INCONNU: suivi de précisions et documents inédits. Brescia, Shakespeare and Company, 1978, p. 58⁶
• Hall, Modigliani, Phaidon, Oxford, 1979, no. 23
• Mann, Modigliani, Thames and Hudson, London, 1980, p. 117, no. 80⁸
• Musée de Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Modigliani exhib. cat., 1981, p. 165
• Hall, Modigliani, Phaidon, Oxford, 1984, no. 23
• Roy, Modigliani, Nathan, Paris, 1985, p. 97
• Castieau-Barrielle, La vie et l'oeuvre de Amedeo Modigliani, Editions ACR, Paris, 1987, p. 11⁹
• Hoog, Catalogue of the Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume Collection, Editions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, Paris
• 1990 - no. 61
• Schmalenbach, Amedeo Modigliani, Prestel, Munich, 1990, p. 84 - no. 36¹⁰
• Parisot, Catalogue Raisonné Modigliani, Graphis Arte, 1991 no. 38/1915¹¹
• Patani, Catalogo Generale, Leonardo, Milano, 1991-94 - no. 103¹²
• MR, L'Ange au visage grave, Musée du Luxembourg, Paris, 2002, pp. 234-235¹³
• Klein, Modigliani: Beyond the Myth, The Jewish Museum, 2004-2005, p. 124, pl. 39¹⁴
• Soto Caba, Modigliani, The timeless face, Libsa, Madrid, 2007¹⁵
• Ireson, Fraquelli, Modigliani, London, Tate Modern, Skira Rizzoli, London, 2017, p. 91¹⁶

Exhibitions

• Paris, Trente ans d'Art Indépendant, Grand Palais des Champs-Elysées, 1884-1914, 1926 - no. 3102
• Paris, Hommage à Paul Guillaume, Musée de Petit Palais, 1935 - no. 59
• Paris, les maîtres de l'art indépendant 1895-1937, Exposition Universal, Petit Palais, 1937 - no. 70
• Paris, Modigliani Peintures, Galerie de France, 1945-46 - no. 2
• Paris, Cent chefs-d'oeuvre des peintres de l'école de Paris, Galerie Charpentier, 1946 - no. 61
• Marseille, Modigliani, Musée Cantini, 1958 - no. 8
• Paris, Cent Tableaux de Modigliani, Galerie Charpentier, 1958 - no. 25
• Düsseldorf, Amedeo Modigliani: Malerei, Skulpturen, Zeichnungen, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, 1991 - no. 31
• Zurich, Amedeo Modigliani: Malerei, Skulpturen, Zeichnungen, Kunsthaus, 1991 - no. 31
• Melbourne, Renoir to Picasso. The masterpieces from le Musée de l'Orangerie, National Gallery of Victoria, 2001
• Paris, Modigliani: l'ange au visage grave, Musée du Luxembourg, 2002 - no. 43
• New York, Modigliani: Beyond the Myth, The Jewish Museum, 2004
• Bonn, Amedeo Modigliani: Ein Mythos der Moderne, Bundesrepublik, 2009 - no. 56 (as oil on cardboard glued to wood)
• Pisa, Amedeo Modigliani et ses amis, BLU | Palazzo d’arte e cultura, 2014- 2015
• Torino, Modigliani e la Bohème di Parigi, Galleria d’Arte Moderna, 2015
• Villeneuve d'Ascq, L'oeil intérieur, LaM. Lille Métropole musée d'art moderne, 2016
• Budapest, Modigliani, Hungarian National Gallery, 2016
• Helsinki, Modigliani, Ateneum Art Museum, 2016-2017
• London, Modigliani, Tate Modern, 2017-2018

Notes

Musée de l’Orangerie confirms: oil on cardboard glued to parqueted plywood (contre-plaqué parqueté), 105 × 75 cm, 1915, Inv. RF 1960-44. Inscriptions match the file (MODIGLIANI / 1915 lower right; PAUL GUILLAUME upper left; NOVO PILOTA in green-white lower left; Star of David / STELLA MARIS). Acquired via the Walter-Guillaume collection; entered the museum 1960. The museum notes it was painted at Beatrice Hastings’s residence in Montmartre.

no. 268 in D' Atri papers -oil on canvas - size 105 x 74 cm. - 1915 - Guillaume Coll. by 1929

Signature:

Detail of the ears where the drawing is clearly visible and is painted in color

Curiosity:

Extract from a report by MR will give a deeper comprehension of the private expert way of working:

Translation:

The ears: When they are left exposed in female portraits (rare), they are not detailed. Even in the portraits of men, they are not the object of so much detail.

Exactly the opposite to this case, the

ears are full in details, as detailed as the eyes or the hair...

The painting framed at the museum in 2016:

In Modigliani J. , Modigliani: Man and Myth, Orion Press, New York, 1958, p. 71:

Paul Guillaume and Beatrice

In 1914 Max Jacob introduced Modigliani to Paul Guillaume.

On April 6, 1932, Guillaume wrote to Scheiwiller:

"In 1914, through all of 1915 and a part of 1916, I was the only purchaser of Modigliani, and it was only in 1917 that Zborowski became interested in him.

Modigliani was introduced to me by Max Jacob. He was then living with Beatrice Hastings, and he worked either in her house, at the painter Haviland,

in a studio that had been rented for him at 13 Rue Ravignan, or in a little house in Montmartre where he had lived with Beatrice and where he did my portrait."

The portrait of Paul Guillaume — with the words "Novo Pilota" written on the lower left-hand corner — was painted in 1915 at 13 Rue Norvins, the house where

Beatrice lived and before her, Emile Zola.

Quite interesting to see in R, L'Ange au visage grave, Musée du Luxembourg, Paris, 2002 p. 234 the next text:

" It was at 13 rue Norvins, the house of Beatrice Hastings, that Modigliani made the portrait of his first

marchand...

The same passage already appears in Jeanne Modigliani, 1958.

Sketch portrait de Paul Guillaume à mi-cuisse, Ca. 1915 at the musée de l'Orangerie

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