Head of a girl in blue with a red ribbon

Identification

Published titles

English: Head of a girl in blue with a red ribbon; Girl in blue.

Date

1918, unconfirmed. Pfannstiel dated the canvas 1919.

Medium

Oil on canvas, unconfirmed.

Dimensions

Lanthemann: 10F, 55 × 46 cm.

Signature

Signed modigliani at top right. Pfannstiel recorded the signature at top left; this investigation notes that Pfannstiel made the same class of error on other sheets.

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. Zak Collection, Paris? (Pfannstiel).
2. Subsequent owners not named in this investigation.

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. 54.¹
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1956, no. 340, as Head of a girl in blue with a red ribbon, dated 1919, 55 × 46 cm, Zak Collection.²
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 308.³
• Osvaldo Patani, 1991–94, p. 19, published as an example of forgery, without a technical argument in that passage.⁴

Exhibitions

• No exhibition is recorded in this investigation.

Notes

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

This investigation does not record an entry in the D’Atri papers.

Patani, 1991–94, p. 19, presents the work as a forgery. This investigation records that judgement as Patani’s published opinion and notes the absence of a supporting technical demonstration in that passage. No further verdict is added here.

This investigation records that Patani’s catalogue does not cite Lanthemann, and that this canvas appears in Lanthemann and, with a question mark, in Pfannstiel.

This investigation states that a good-quality colour reproduction of this canvas was not available to the compiler.

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