Young woman called Elvira

Oil on canvas, 1918?

Date1918?

MediumOil on canvas

Size54.5 × 43.2 cm?

CollectionPrivate collection?

SignatureTop right

Investigation1918-w-89

Identification

Published titles: English: Young woman called Elvira; Woman; Elvira.
French: Jeune fille.
Date: 1918 in Pfannstiel and Lanthemann. D’Atri dates the work Nice 1918.
Medium: Oil on canvas.
Dimensions: 54.5 × 43.2 cm, unconfirmed (Pfannstiel: 65 × 47 cm; D’Atri: 55.5 × 44 cm).
Signature: Signed modigliani at top right.
Present location: Private collection? Last named holder: The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, from 2001.

Catalogue numbers

Compiler	Number
Arthur Pfannstiel	no. 304
Joseph Lanthemann	no. 257
Ambrogio Ceroni	NO
Jeanne Modigliani	YES
Christian Parisot	?
Osvaldo Patani	NO
Modigliani Project	?
MR	?
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

Léopold Zborowski, Paris.
Bignou Collection, Paris?
Alex Reid & Lefevre, London (stock book no. 224/28, 18 October 1928).
Gordon Small Collection, Scotland (acquired 5 March 1929).
Gordon Small Charitable Trust, Scotland.
Christie’s, London, 27 June 1978, lot 54, sold for GBP 88,000.
Marion O. Hoffman Trust.
Sotheby’s, New York, 15 May 1984, lot 47.
Janice H. Levin Collection, New York.
The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, 2001.

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, 1956, no. 304, as Jeune fille (Elvira), 65 × 47 cm, dated 1918.¹
Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 257, as Portrait de jeune fille (dite “Elvira”), dated 1918.²
Richard Shone, Levin Collection catalogue, 2002, pp. 136–39.³

Exhibitions

London, Alex Reid & Lefevre, 1929, no. 20.
Edinburgh, 1937, no. 9; London, 1943, no. 16; Edinburgh, 1961; Edinburgh, 1969, no. 41.
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Janice H. Levin Collection of French Art, 2002–03, no. 36.

Notes

D’Atri papers no. 154, as Jeune fille, 55.5 × 44 cm, Nice 1918; no provenance given there.

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

Young woman called Elvira — The painting. Reproduction published in the documentation assembled for this investigation.

At the Pierre Hotel, c. 1998 — The painting in Janice Levin’s New York residence.

Footnotes

Arthur Pfannstiel, Modigliani et son œuvre, étude critique et catalogue raisonné, Paris, Bibliothèque des Arts, 1956.
Joseph Lanthemann, Modigliani, catalogue raisonné: sa vie, son œuvre, son art, Barcelona, G. Condal, 1970.
Richard Shone, The Janice H. Levin Collection of French Art, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art / Yale University Press, 2002.