Woman with hair bows

Identification

Published titles

English: Woman with hair bows.
French: La femme aux macarons.

Date

1917?

Medium

Oil on canvas.

Dimensions

60.4 × 46 cm (size given in the Quattrocchi dossier).

Signature

Signed modigliani in white at top centre-left.

Present location

Private 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. Private collection?

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.

• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 208 (the catalogue table in this investigation also lists Lanthemann no. 209).¹

Exhibitions

• Genoa, Palazzo Ducale, Modigliani, 2017, no. 56.

Notes

This investigation marks the work as not located in the D’Atri papers.

The painting was among works shown at Genoa, Palazzo Ducale, 2017, no. 56. It was seized by the police after a report by C. Pepi.

Published conclusion of Prof. Isabella Quattrocchi (as printed in this investigation): the face is described as lacking expressive mobility, with rigid symmetry of features; shadows are characterised as almost non-existent and uncalibrated; black hair is lightened by graffiti in the still-fresh colour; the ground and clothing are described as artificially cracked; cadmium red is said to dominate the complexion; a commercial pre-prepared cloth with a second preparation of titanium white is proposed. The signature in white at upper left is described as false. Quattrocchi concluded that the work is false.

Laboratory report LAMOA1710-96 56 OA, as cited in the same file: titanium-rutile white pigments appear at the time of the Second World War and therefore “cannot be here a work of Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920)”; the set of characteristics is said to indicate that the painting was “very probably” painted after the 1960s.

These statements are reported as published facts from the investigation file. No independent conclusion is added here.

Published documentation for this file is thin. Catalogue numbers, exhibitions and bibliography are given only where this investigation recorded them.

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.