Elena Povolozky

Identification

Published titles

English: Elena; Elena Povolozky.

Date

1917.

Medium

Oil on canvas.

Dimensions

64.7 × 48.5 cm? Wayne: 64.8 × 48.6 cm.

Signature

Signed modigliani at bottom right in white; the word ELENA in black at top right. Reverse not recorded in the documentation assembled for this investigation.

Present location

Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., inv. 1369 (museum object number; 1396 was the number previously recorded here). Acquired 1949.

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. Elena Povolozky, Paris.
2. Laffaille Collection, Paris.
3. Pierre Matisse (until 1949).
4. Phillips Collection, Washington, inv. 1369 (museum object number; 1396 was the number previously recorded here), acquired 1949.

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.

• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1929, pp. 30–31.¹
• Museum of Modern Art, New York, exhibition catalogue, 1951, p. 35.
• Duncan Phillips, 1952, p. 70.
• James Thrall Soby, 1951 / 1954, p. 37.²
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1956, no. 189.³
• Ambrogio Ceroni, 1965, no. 168.⁴
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 195.⁵
• Ambrogio Ceroni and Leone Piccioni, 1970, no. 168.⁶
• Christian Parisot, 1991, no. 7/1917.⁷
• Osvaldo Patani, 1991–94, no. 173.⁸
• Kenneth Wayne, 2002, p. 95, no. 18.⁹
• Mason Klein, 2004, back cover, p. 137, pl. 53.¹⁰

Exhibitions

• Paris, Galerie de France, 1945–46, no. 71 (Parisot citation; this investigation notes the number is not confirmed in its own exhibition list).
• Cleveland Museum of Art, 1951; New York, Museum of Modern Art, 1951.
• Palm Beach and Coral Gables, 1954.
• New York, Acquavella Galleries, 1971, no. 19.
• Tokyo and Osaka, Daimaru, Love and Nostalgia for Montparnasse, 1979, Osaka no. 2.
• Phillips Collection, 1981–82, no. 48.
• Düsseldorf and Zurich, 1991, Düsseldorf no. 50.
• Detroit and Washington, Degas to Matisse, 2000–01.
• Buffalo and Fort Worth, Modigliani and the Artists of Montparnasse, 2002–03, no. 18.
• New York, Toronto and Washington, Modigliani: Beyond the Myth, 2004–05.
• Genoa, Palazzo Ducale, 2017.

Notes

D’Atri papers no. 303, Col. Povolozky, Paris, 1929.

This investigation records holes at the corners of the support. This investigation records that the holes are covered by restoration.

This investigation records a strong cleaning of the paint surface. Framed photographs before the 2002 Albright-Knox exhibition and after treatment at the Phillips Collection are reproduced in this investigation.

Another portrait of the same sitter is recorded in a private collection (this investigation comparison image year/1917/52.jpg).

This investigation records a drawn ear painted over the colour.

The Phillips Collection confirms Elena Povolozky, 1917, oil on canvas, 64.8 × 48.6 cm (25 1/2 × 19 1/8 in.), object number 1369, acquired 1949. The inventory number 1396 in the heading of this file is not the number published by the museum.

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