Seated man with a cane

Identification

Published titles

English: Seated man with a cane / Georges Menier? / Paul Guillaume?.

Date

1918, unconfirmed. Lanthemann dates the canvas 1916.

Medium

Oil on canvas.

Dimensions

126 × 75 cm. Ceroni, Patani and Parisot give 100 × 65 cm.

Signature

Signed modigliani at top right.

Present location

Nahmad Collection?

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. Roger Dutilleul Collection, Paris.
2. Stettiner Collection, Paris (acquired about 1930).
3. Recorded as stolen by the German occupation authorities, with the intervention of Arthur Pfannstiel noted in this investigation.
4. John Van der Klip (acquired at an unidentified Paris sale, 1940–45?).
5. John Livengood, Paris (by inheritance).
6. Christie’s, London, sale 5619, 25 June 1996, lot 15, estimate GBP 2–3 million, sold for GBP 2,091,500. The catalogue did not mention the Stettiner provenance; a label on the reverse records it.
7. David Nahmad Collection (or Nahmad enterprises).
8. Sotheby’s, New York, sale N08485, 3 November 2008, lot 26, estimate USD 18–25 million, bought in. The catalogue mentioned the Stettiner provenance as possible and did not mention wartime plunder.
9. David Nahmad Collection (or Nahmad enterprises).

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.

• Ambrogio Ceroni, 1958, no. 113.¹
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 118, as Seated man / Paul Guillaume?, dated 1916.²
• Ambrogio Ceroni and Leone Piccioni, 1970, no. 252, as Seated man with a cane, dated 1918 and as lost.³
• Osvaldo Patani, 1991–94, no. 265, dated 1918.⁴
• Christian Parisot, 1991, no. 31/1918.⁵
• R. Chiappini (ed.), Lugano 1999, no. 50. The paintings catalogue by Decrooq identifies the canvas with Venice 1930 no. 16; the Venice catalogue lists it as no. 35, Stettiner property.
• Mason Klein, 2004, p. 142, pl. 58.⁶
• Simonetta Fraquelli, 2006, p. 114, no. 30.⁷
• Victoria Soto Caba, 2007.⁸
• Le Monde, 27 May 2016, reporting MR’s identification of the sitter as Georges Menier, with references to the Menier archive at the Musée d’Orsay and to the memories of Anna Zborowska.

Exhibitions

• Venice Biennale, Venturi retrospective, Sala XII, 1930, no. 35, property of Stettiner, Paris.
• Lugano, Museo d’Arte Moderna, Amedeo Modigliani, 1999, no. 50.
• Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario, Modigliani: Beyond the Myth, 2004–05.
• Washington, The Phillips Collection, Modigliani: Beyond the Myth, 2005.
• New York, Helly Nahmad Gallery, Amedeo Modigliani: A Bohemian Myth, 2005.
• London, Royal Academy of Arts, Modigliani and His Models, 2006, no. 30.

Notes

Presence in the D’Atri papers is unconfirmed.

This investigation records holes at the corners of the canvas.

This investigation records a drawn ear painted over the colour.

This investigation records that exhibition catalogues after 1999 did not mention the Stettiner label on the reverse.

MR’s identification of the sitter as Georges Menier is reported as published. This investigation also places the canvas beside portraits of Simonne Menier and of a boy in short trousers, without treating the grouping as established.

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