La belle épicière

Identification

Published titles

English: The beautiful vendor. French: La belle épicière / La servante de Cagnes / La jolie épicière.

Date

Pfannstiel dates the canvas 1915; Lanthemann dates it 1919; the 1958 Charpentier exhibition dated it 1916; the 1955 Bern exhibition dated it 1918. Ceroni and Patani date it 1918.

Medium

Oil on canvas.

Dimensions

100 × 65.1 cm, unconfirmed (Parisot: 99 × 65 cm).

Signature

Signed modigliani at top right, with the text EPIC at top centre.

Present location

Nahmad Collection, Monaco?

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. Madame Walter, Paris (by inheritance from Guillaume).
3. Bourdon Collection, Paris (recorded in 1955).
4. Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Bourdon sale, expert Guy Loudmer, 25 March 1990, lot 36, sold for USD 10,930,500.
5. Alain Delon Collection.
6. Sotheby’s, New York, sale 6769, 8 November 1995, lot 60, sold for USD 6,000,000.
7. Nahmad Collection, Monaco?

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, La grande peinture contemporaine à la collection Paul Guillaume, Paris, 1929.
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1929 presumed catalogue, p. 17.¹
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1956, no. 66, dated 1915.²
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 365, as La belle épicière, la servante de Cagnes, dated 1919.³
• Ambrogio Ceroni and Leone Piccioni, 1970, no. 256, dated 1918.⁴
• Christian Parisot, 1991, no. 35/1918.⁵
• Osvaldo Patani, 1991–94, no. 269, as La bella droghiera, dated 1918.⁶
• R. Chiappini (ed.), Lugano 1999, pp. 128–129, no. 62.
• Mason Klein, 2004, p. 160, pl. 76, dated 1918.⁷
• Simonetta Fraquelli, 2006, pp. 116, no. 32, dated 1918.⁸
• Nancy Ireson and Simonetta Fraquelli, Tate Modern, 2017, p. 158.⁹

Exhibitions

• Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, La grande peinture contemporaine à la collection Paul Guillaume, 1929.
• Venice Biennale, Venturi retrospective, 1930, no. 31.
• Paris, Galerie Marcel Bernheim, 1931, no. 21, as Jeune fille au travail?
• Paris, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Art moderne italien, 1950.
• London, Tate Gallery, 1950.
• Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Peintres de portraits, 1952, no. 43.
• Bern, Kunsthalle, 1955, no. 21.
• Paris, Galerie Charpentier, 1958, no. 35, dated 1916.
• Düsseldorf and Zurich, 1991, no. 72.
• Lugano, 1999, no. 62.
• New York, Toronto and Washington, Modigliani: Beyond the Myth, 2004–05.
• Rome, Complesso del Vittoriano, 2006.
• London, Royal Academy of Arts, 2006, no. 32.
• London, Tate Modern, 2017–18.

Notes

D’Atri papers no. 198, as La jolie épicière, dated 1916–17, painted in Paris, 99 × 65 cm; provenance Paul Guillaume Gallery, Paris.

This investigation records holes at the corners of the canvas.

This investigation records a drawn ear painted over the colour.

This investigation records a recent cleaning, observed visually, without a published conservation report.

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