The green eyes

Identification

Published titles

English: Bust of a young woman / The green eyes.
French: Les yeux verts.

Date

1917? Modigliani Project: c. 1917. Museum: c. 1917–18.

Medium

Oil on canvas.

Dimensions

65 × 48.3 cm.

Signature

Signed modigliani at top right.

Present location

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, inv. 1951.358 (Hanna Fund, 1951).

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. Georges Bénard, Paris (until 1933).
2. Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Collection G. B. (Georges Bénard / Bernard Frères et Cie), 9 June 1933, lot 67, as Les yeux verts, illustrated, sold 14,500 FF.
3. Georges Bernheim, Paris (acquired at the above sale).
4. Galerie Paul Guillaume, Paris (stamp on the reverse; no further gallery record found).
5. César de Hauke, Paris (until 1951).
6. The Cleveland Museum of Art, inv. 1951.358, gift of the Hanna Fund, 1951.

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.

• The Cleveland Museum of Art, Handbook, 1958, no. 520.
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 207.¹
• Kenneth Wayne, 2002, p. 100, no. 23 (Guillaume provenance).²
• Simonetta Fraquelli, “Modigliani, Fort Worth and Paris,” Burlington Magazine 145 (2003), pp. 254–55.
• Christian Parisot, 2012, no. 49/1917 (this investigation notes incorrect bibliography and exhibitions in that entry).³
• Victoria Soto Caba, 2007.⁴

Exhibitions

• Muskegon, The Hackley Art Gallery, Old Masters of Modern Art, 1958.
• Cleveland, The Cleveland Museum of Art, In Memoriam: Leonard C. Hanna, 1958.
• Cleveland, Juxtapositions, 1965.
• Tokyo and Osaka, Daimaru, Love and Nostalgia for Montparnasse, 1979, no. 17.
• Liège, Musée Saint-Georges, Modigliani, 1980.
• Buffalo, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Modigliani and the Artists of Montparnasse, 2002–03, no. 23.
• Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, same exhibition, 2003, no. 23.
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art, same exhibition, 2003, no. 23.
• Beijing, Mori, Seoul, Vancouver, Cleveland, Nashville, Salt Lake City and Detroit, Monet to Dalí: Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art, 2006–09.

Notes

This investigation is uncertain whether the work appears in the D’Atri papers.

This investigation records holes at the four corners of the support. The holes are half covered by restoration; the circle left by the pin head remains visible.

Another painting of the same unidentified sitter is cited.

The Cleveland Museum of Art confirms Portrait of a Woman, c. 1917–18, oil on canvas, 65 × 48.3 cm, inv. 1951.358, Gift of the Hanna Fund. The museum’s published provenance is Georges Bénard until 1933; Hôtel Drouot, 9 June 1933, no. 67, sold to G. Bernheim; a Galerie Paul Guillaume label on the reverse, order unconfirmed; César de Hauke until 1951. The sale title Les yeux verts is retained here.

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