Amedeo Modigliani

Roger Dutilleul, Paris

Thence by descent to the present owner

Paris, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Les Réalismes, 1919-1939, 1980-81, no. 22

Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, XX Anniversaire, 1981, no. 67

Paris, Musée du Luxembourg, Modigliani, L’ange au visage grave, 2002-03, no. 80

Rome, Complesso del Vittoriano, Modigliani, 2006, no. 34

Jean Cocteau, Modigliani, Paris, 1950, no. 22, illustrated

Arthur Pfannstiel, Modigliani et son oeuvre, étude critique et catalogne raisonné, in Souvenirs et documents, Paris, 1956, no. 358, catalogued p. 174 (titled Tête de Mme Hébuterne de profil and as dating from 1920)

Joseph Lanthemann, Modigliani 1884-1920, Catalogue raisonné, sa vie, son Oeuvre complet, son art, Barcelona, 1970, no. 361, illustrated p. 254

Ambrogio Ceroni, Tout l’oeuvre peint de Modigliani, Paris, 1972, no. 262, illustrated p. 101

Osvaldo Patani, Amedeo Modigliani, Catalogo Generale. Dipinti, Milan, 1991, no. 273, illustrated p. 276

Modigliani reveled in exposing the sensuality of his female sitters.  Among the most provocative of his works are his portraits of his lover Jeanne Hébuterne (1898-1920) (see fig. 1), who was his primary model and muse during the last years of his life (see fig. 2).  Jeanne was about 20 at the time the artist painted the present portrait in 1918 and two years into a romantic relationship with the artist that would last until his death in 1920.  The present portrait is one in a series that Modigliani completed in 1918, depicting Jeanne in profile.  The linearity of her form recalls the finely chiseled stone carvings that Modigliani had executed seven years earlier (see fig. 3).   Her elongated features, particularly the graceful curve of her slender neck, appealed to the Mannerist-inspired aesthetic that Modigliani had developed by this late point in his career, and his stylized depiction of her calls to mind Parmigianino’s Madonna with the Long Neck (see fig. 4).  

Jeanne was born on April 6, 1898 and was just 19 when she met Modigliani in the summer of 1917, while studying at the Académie Colarossi. For the next three years, she would be his constant companion and source of inspiration, and the artist was to immortalize her image in a number of portraits. Although Jeanne was an artist herself, she committed suicide at the age of only 22 and she remains known primarily through Modigliani’s portraits of her. By the time he started depicting Jeanne, the artist had developed his mature style, and the portraits of her, painted during the last three years of his life, are among his most refined and accomplished works.  

Having developed and refined his style and technique, Modigliani confidently imbued his portraits of Jeanne with an emotional and psychological dimension unique within his work, as described by Claude Roy: “In most pictures of Jeanne we find a very discreet, deliberately subdued color orchestration […] in the softness of the colors, the fragile delicacy of the tones and the exquisite discretion with which relationships between the picture elements are stated, we cannot fail to sense the expression of a love no less discreet than ecstatic. Modigliani is speaking here almost in a whisper; he murmurs his painting as a lover murmurs endearments in the ear of his beloved. And the light bathing the picture is the light of adoration” (Claude Roy, Modigliani, New York, 1958, pp. 112-13).

The present painting once belonged to Modigliani’s great patron, Roger Dutilleul (1873-1956) and can be seen in a contemporary photograph of his apartment (see fig. 5).  As one of the first significant collectors of 20^th century avant-garde art, Dutilleul played an essential role in supporting the creative development of some of the most daring artists in Paris, including Léger, Picasso, Braque, Miró and, perhaps most importantly, Modigliani.  This work was one of a select group that Dutilleul kept in his private collection all of his life.  As was typical of an avid collector, Dutilleul would periodically edit and refresh his holdings, either selling or trading his paintings for others that he admired.  His activity in this regard was essential to maintaining the flow of the market and the demand for art, and Modigliani’s pictures were subjected to this treatment more so than the works of any other major artist in Dutilleul’s vast collection.   Over the course of Dutilleul’s lifetime a total of 55 of Modigliani’s works passed through his hands, and many of these he acquired between 1918-1925. Considering the limited number of works in the artist’s oeuvre, this figure is of no small importance and accounts for Dutilleul as having possessed, at one point or another, the lion’s share of Modigliani’s production.  Such good fortune was perhaps no surprise considering the man’s motto as a collector: “There is no such thing as abstract or figurative,” he was known to have said, “there is just good painting” (quoted in Marc Restellini, et. al, op. cit., p. 95). 

Fig. 1, Photograph of Jeanne Hébuterne

Fig. 2, Amedeo Modigliani, Jeanne Hébuterne (devant une porte), oil on canvas, 1919, sold: Sotheby’s, New York, November 4, 2004

Fig. 3, Amedeo Modigliani, Tête de femme, stone, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris 

Fig. 4, Francesco Mazzola, called Parmigianino, Madonna dal collo lungo (detail), 1534-40, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Fig. 5, Photograph of the present work in the apartment of Roger Dutilleul