Boy in a blue jacket

Identification

Published titles

English: Boy in a blue jacket / Boy with a blue shirt.
French: Garçon à la veste bleue / Le gosse du concierge.

Date

1918? Lanthemann dated the canvas 1919.

Medium

Oil on canvas.

Dimensions

92.5 × 61 cm (Patani: 92 × 73 cm; Parisot: 92 × 63 cm).

Signature

Signed modigliani at top right.

Present location

Private collection? Last named public sale: Sotheby’s, London, 21 June 2004, lot 6.

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. Jonas Netter Collection, Paris.
3. Galerie Bing et Cie, Paris (by 1927).
4. George Collection, Paris.
5. Scheiwiller Collection, Paris or Milan?
6. Félix Fénéon Collection, Paris.
7. Solomon R. Guggenheim Collection, New York, acquired from Fénéon in 1932.
8. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, gift 1937; deaccessioned 1990.
9. Sotheby’s, New York, 17 May 1990, lot 39, estimate USD 6,000,000–8,000,000, sold USD 11,550,000.
10. Klaus Perls (Perls Gallery), New York, 1990–2004.
11. Sotheby’s, London, 21 June 2004, lot 6, estimate GBP 3,500,000–4,500,000, sold GBP 6,165,600.
12. 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.

• Waldemar George, L’Amour de l’art, Paris, 1925, p. 385, pl. 7.
• Giovanni Scheiwiller, Arte moderna italiana no. 8, Milan, Hoepli, 1927, pl. 7.
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1929 presumed catalogue, p. 45.¹
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1956, no. 279.²
• Ambrogio Ceroni, 1958, no. 100.³
• Ambrogio Ceroni and Leone Piccioni, 1970, no. 259.⁴
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 368, dated 1919.⁵
• Angelica Zander Rudenstine, 1976, no. 97.⁶
• Werner Schmalenbach, 1990, p. 134, no. 82.⁷
• Christian Parisot, 1991, no. 19/1918.⁸
• Osvaldo Patani, 1991–94, no. 272.⁹
• Nancy Ireson and Simonetta Fraquelli, Tate Modern, 2017, p. 161.¹⁰

Exhibitions

• Paris, Galerie Bing et Cie, 1925, no. 28.
• Zurich, Kunsthaus, Italienische Maler, 1927, no. 103, as Le gosse du concierge, dated 1918.
• Charleston, Gibbes Memorial Art Gallery, Guggenheim Collection, 1936, no. 118.
• Philadelphia Art Alliance, same collection, 1937, no. 183.
• Cleveland / New York, Modigliani–Soutine, 1951.
• Multiple Guggenheim Museum collection displays, 1953–78.
• Edinburgh / London, Tate Gallery, 1963, no. 38.
• New York, Acquavella Galleries, 1971, no. 40, dated 1918.
• Düsseldorf / Zurich, 1991, no. 75.
• Tokyo / Kyoto / Osaka / Ibaraki, 1992–93, no. 34.
• London, Tate Modern, 2017–18.

Notes

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

This investigation records holes at the corners of the canvas.

This investigation records a drawn ear painted over the colour.

This investigation records a comparison of surface contrast before and after the 2004 sale.

The 1990 Sotheby’s New York catalogue cited Pfannstiel, Lanthemann, Ceroni, Patani and Wayne; this investigation notes that the Wayne reference attached to this lot is the other boy. Parisot and MR were not cited in that sale text.

This investigation records a related boy in similar costume dated 1919 from the Cagnes inscription near the signature (this investigation’s 1919-w-3).

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.