Kisling studio (work table and caryatid)

Oil on canvas; 1918?

Date1918?
MediumOil on canvas
Size55 × 77 cm
CollectionPrivate collection, Europe?
SignatureKisling bottom right; Modigliani bottom left
Investigation1918-w-68

Identification

Published titles
French: Kisling atelier.
Date
1918, unconfirmed.
Medium
Oil on canvas.
Dimensions
55 × 77 cm (size given in the Quattrocchi dossier).
Signature
Signed kisling at bottom right and modigliani at bottom left. Parisot states that both hands worked on the canvas.
Present location
Private collection, Europe?

Catalogue numbers

Compiler Number
Arthur PfannstielNO
Joseph Lanthemann?
Ambrogio CeroniNO
Jeanne Modigliani?
Christian Parisot YES?
Osvaldo PataniNO
Modigliani Project?
MRNO
Modigliani Initiative?

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. Private collection, Europe?

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.

Exhibitions

Notes

Not recorded in the D’Atri papers.

The painting was seized by the police after a report by C. Pepi. Prof. Isabella Quattrocchi, consultant to the Tribunale di Roma for works of art, issued a written conclusion that the work is false. The notes below report that published conclusion and do not add a further opinion.

The Quattrocchi report describes a work table with brushes, pipes, pigment and papers, and a plaster-like caryatid head inserted on the table. The report states that the work was executed in two hands; that the sculpture is amateur; that both signatures are false and veiled by a zinc-white patina; and that a carton-plume backing conceals the construction. The published conclusion is that the work is false.

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

The 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.

Kisling studio table
The painting. Reproduction published in the documentation assembled for this investigation.

Footnotes

  1. Isabella Quattrocchi, written conclusion for the Tribunale di Roma, published in the documentation assembled for this investigation as a translation of the court expert’s report.