The young apprentice

Identification

Published titles

English: The young apprentice; Boy leaning on a table; The peasant boy, elbow on the table; Adolescent.

Date

1918 in Ceroni, Patani, Parisot and MR. The Musée de l’Orangerie dates the canvas 1917–19. Lanthemann dates it 1919.

Medium

Oil on canvas.

Dimensions

100 × 65 cm (Musée de l’Orangerie).

Signature

Signed modigliani at top left.

Present location

Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris (inv. RF 1963-71). Oil on canvas, signed upper left. The museum records the canvas with Zborowski, then Paul Guillaume, then Mme Jean Walter until 1963, when it was acquired from her with the Société des Amis du Louvre (approval of 28 December 1963). This investigation had dated the acquisition 1957.

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. Léopold Zborowski, Paris.
2. Paul Guillaume, Paris (1929).
3. A “private collection, England” recorded by Pfannstiel is treated in this investigation as a probable confusion with the Tate peasant.
4. Domenica Walter (Mme Jean Walter), Paris (by descent from Guillaume), until 1963.
5. Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris (inv. RF 1963-71), acquired from Mme Jean Walter in 1963.

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, p. 38.¹
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1956, no. 241, located in a private collection, England.²
• Ambrogio Ceroni, 1958, no. 103.³
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 372, dated 1919.⁴
• Ambrogio Ceroni and Leone Piccioni, 1970, no. 258, dated 1918.⁵
• Michel Hoog, Walter–Guillaume catalogue, 1987–90, no. 64.⁶
• Osvaldo Patani, 1991–94, no. 271.⁷
• Christian Parisot, 1991, no. 40/1918.⁸
• MR, Luxembourg 2002, no. 86.⁹

Exhibitions

• Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, La grande peinture contemporaine à la collection Paul Guillaume, 1929.
• Paris, Musée du Petit Palais, Hommage à Paul Guillaume, 1935, no. 427.
• Paris, Galerie de France, 1945–46, no. 24, 100 × 64 cm, as Le jeune apprenti.
• Paris, Galerie Charpentier, 1958, no. 54.
• Paris, Orangerie des Tuileries, 1966, no. 123.
• Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1981, no. 96.
• Düsseldorf and Zurich, 1991, no. 74.
• Paris, Musée du Luxembourg, 2002, no. 86.
• Milan, Palazzo Reale, 2003, no. 60.
• New York, The Jewish Museum, 2004.
• Bonn, 2009, no. 88, dated 1917.
• Pisa, BLU Palazzo d’arte e cultura, 2014–15.

Notes

D’Atri papers no. 203, as The young apprentice (young man leaning), Paris 1918, 100 × 65 cm; provenance Zborowski > Guillaume 1929.

Corner holes are present and have been filled.

The work was examined in the 1981 Laboratoire de recherche des musées de France campaign.

The same sitter appears in the Tate Little peasant (1918-w-118).

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