La jeune bonne (the servant girl)

Identification

Published titles

English: The servant girl; Marie Feret; The young maid.
French: La jeune bonne.

Date

c. 1918 (Buffalo AKG). Ceroni, Patani and Parisot date the canvas 1918. D’Atri dates it Nice 1919.

Medium

Oil on canvas.

Dimensions

152.4 × 60.96 cm (Buffalo AKG; also published as 152.4 × 61 cm). Wayne gives 152.2 × 61 cm.

Signature

Signed Modigliani at top right.

Present location

Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly Albright-Knox Art Gallery (inv. RCA1939:6). Room of Contemporary Art Fund, 1939. This investigation records the purchase from Bignou Gallery, New York, on 7 February 1939. The museum identifies the sitter as Marie Feret, a country girl from the south of France.

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. Paul Guillaume, Paris.
2. Pierre Bertin Collection, Paris.
3. Étienne Bignou Collection, Paris (by 1929).
4. Bignou Gallery, New York.
5. Albright Art Gallery, acquired 7 February 1939 (now Albright-Knox Art Gallery, inv. RCA1939:6).

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 presumed catalogue, pp. 39, 112.¹
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1956, no. 244, as The servant (Marie Feret, paysanne de Cagnes), dated 1918.²
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 310.³
• Ambrogio Ceroni and Leone Piccioni, 1970, no. 248, dated 1918.⁴
• Werner Schmalenbach, 1990, no. 76.⁵
• Osvaldo Patani, 1991–94, no. 260.⁶
• Christian Parisot, 1991, no. 10/1918.⁷
• Kenneth Wayne, 2002, no. 36.⁸

Exhibitions

• Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, 1922, no. 34, as La jeune servante.
• Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 1930, no. 53.
• Zurich, Kunsthaus, 1930, no. 136 (Pfannstiel).
• New York, Demotte, 1931, no. 29.
• London, Reid & Lefevre, 1932, no. 13, and 1938, no. 12, dated 1919.
• Cleveland and New York, Museum of Modern Art, 1951.
• Boston and Los Angeles, 1961, no. 33.
• New York, Acquavella Galleries, 1971, no. 44, dated 1919.
• Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1981, no. 63.
• Tokyo and Nagoya, 1985, no. 109.
• Düsseldorf and Zurich, 1991, no. 69.
• Buffalo, Fort Worth and Los Angeles, 2002–03, no. 36.
• New York, Toronto and Washington, 2004–05.
• London, Royal Academy, 2006, no. 31.

Notes

D’Atri papers no. 193, as La jeune bonne (Marie Feret), Nice 1919; provenance Bertin > Bignou 1929 > Guillaume.

Holes are visible at the four corners.

The Metropolitan Museum’s girl in a sailor blouse (1918-w-114) is often identified as the same sitter, Marie Feret.

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