Identification

Published titles

English: Self-Portrait; Self-Portrait with Palette; Portrait of the Artist.

Date

Usually dated 1919. This investigation allows 1919–1920. Some exhibition texts have called it the artist’s last painting; that is an opinion, not a documented terminal date.
The Luxembourg exhibition of 2002 presented it that way, and the Royal Academy guide also describes it as probably his last painting.

Medium

Oil on canvas.
An educational guide of the Royal Academy describes the work as “oil on panel,” despite giving the same dimensions. The museum catalogues it as oil on canvas.

Dimensions

100 × 64.5 cm. The 1946 Milan exhibition recorded 100 × 67 cm. The D’Atri papers give 92 × 60 cm, which does not match the museum measurement.

Signature

Signed modigliani at top right.

Present location

Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil, inv. 1963.2.16. Gift of Yolanda Penteado and Francisco Matarazzo Sobrinho, 15 January 1963.

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. Riccardo Gualino Collection, Turin.
4. Sale, Z. Pisa S.A.F., Milan, 7 February 1934, lot 190, pl. CXXIII.
5. Offered to the Museo Civico di Arte Moderna, Turin, and not acquired, 1937.
6. Della Regione Collection, Geneva.
7. Private collection, Biella (by 1946).
8. Yolanda Penteado and Francisco Matarazzo Sobrinho Collection, São Paulo (acquired in Milan about 1946–47).
9. Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, inv. 1963.2.16 (gift 15 January 1963).

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.

• Giovanni Scheiwiller, Arte moderna italiana, no. 8, Milan, Hoepli, 1927, p. 7, and later editions 1928, 1936, 1942, 1950, 1958.¹
• Arthur Pfannstiel, Modigliani. L’Art et la Vie, Paris, Seheur, 1929, p. 132; presumed list p. 52.²
• Formes, “The Gualino Collection,” Paris, July 1930, pl. 15.
• Mario Calzini, Raccolta Pisa, Milan, 1934, pl. 123.
• Enciclopedia Treccani, vol. XXIII, p. 526.
• Raffaello Franchi, Modigliani, Florence, Arnaud, 1944, pl. 27, no. 15; 1947, pl. 50.³
• Anna Maria Brizio, Ottocento, Novecento, Turin, 1944, p. 376.
• Lamberto Vitali, exhibition catalogue, Milan, 1946, pl. 15; Milan, 1950, pl. 10.
• Raffaele Carrieri, 12 opere di Amedeo Modigliani, Milan, Edizioni del Milione, 1947, pl. 12.⁴
• Lionello Venturi, Pittura contemporanea, Milan, 1948, pl. 155.
• Maurice Raynal, Modigliani, Geneva, Skira, 1951, pl. 7.⁵
• James Thrall Soby, Cleveland / MoMA catalogues, 1951 and 1954, p. 53.⁶
• Jacques Lipchitz, Abrams monographs, 1952, p. 21; 1953 and 1954, pl. 52.⁷
• Gotthard Jedlicka, Modigliani, Zurich, Rentsch, 1953, pl. 47.⁸
• Giuseppe Marchiori, Modigliani, Milan, 1953.
• Arthur Pfannstiel, 1956, no. 333, as Portrait of the Artist, dated 1919.⁹
• Ambrogio Ceroni, 1958, no. 337.¹⁰
• Claude Roy, Skira, 1958, p. 10.¹¹
• Jeanne Modigliani, Modigliani: Man and Myth, New York, Orion Press, 1958; Modigliani senza leggenda, Florence, Vallecchi, 1958.¹²
• Franco Russoli, Milan, Fratelli Fabbri, 1963.¹³
• Roger van Gindertael, 1967, pl. 1.
• Géza, Modigliani, Budapest, Corvina, 1969, no. 52.
• Alfred Werner, Modigliani, Soutine, Utrillo, Tudor, 1969, p. 43; Abrams 1985, pl. 1.¹⁴
• Joseph Lanthemann, 1970, no. 354.¹⁵
• Ambrogio Ceroni, Rizzoli 1970 and French 1972, no. 337.¹⁶
• Gaston Diehl, Flammarion, 1977, p. 7.¹⁷
• Walter Zanini, homage exhibition to Francisco Matarazzo Sobrinho, MAC USP, 1977.
• Guy Hubbard, Modigliani and the Painters of Montparnasse, New York, Lamplight, 1975.
• Carol Mann, Thames and Hudson, 1980, p. 196.¹⁸
• Bernard Zurcher, Modigliani, Paris, Hazan, 1980, no. 71.
• Douglas Hall, Phaidon, 1984, p. 13.¹⁹
• Claude Roy, Nathan, 1985, p. 6.
• Kenneth E. Silver and Romy Golan, The Circle of Montparnasse, The Jewish Museum, 1985, pl. 5, p. 103.²⁰
• June Rose Castieau-Barrielle, ACR, 1987, p. 223.²¹
• Christian Parisot, Graphis Arte, 1988; catalogue raisonné 1991, no. 30/1919; Terrail 1992, p. 5.²²
• Aracy Amaral, MAC USP collection profile, 1988, p. 69.
• Werner Schmalenbach, Prestel, 1990, p. 143, no. 91.²³
• Osvaldo Patani, 1991–94, no. 348, as Self-Portrait with Palette, dated 1919–20.²⁴
• MR, Luxembourg 2002, pp. 402–405.²⁵
• Simonetta Fraquelli, Royal Academy, 2006, p. 139.²⁶
• Victoria Soto Caba, Libsa, 2007.²⁷
• MR, Pinacothèque de Paris, 2008, pp. 184–185.
• Nancy Ireson and Simonetta Fraquelli, Tate / Skira Rizzoli, 2017, p. 195.²⁸
• Anikó Bezur and others, “The Modigliani Technical Research Study: Modigliani’s late portraits,” The Burlington Magazine 160 (May 2018), p. 401.²⁹

Exhibitions

• Venice, Mostra individuale di Amedeo Modigliani, sala 31, XVII Esposizione Biennale di Venezia, 1930.
• Milan, Associazione fra gli amatori e i cultori delle arti figurative contemporanee, 1946, no. 15 (size 100 × 67 cm).
• São Paulo, MAM-SP, A Nova Pintura Francesa e seus Mestres, 1949.
• Cleveland Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art, New York, Modigliani–Soutine, 1951.
• Paris, Galerie Charpentier, Cent tableaux de Modigliani, 1958, no. 94.
• Marseille, Musée Cantini, 1958, no. 34.
• New York, The Jewish Museum, The Circle of Montparnasse, 1985–86.
• Martigny, Fondation Pierre Gianadda, 1990, no. 120.
• Düsseldorf and Zurich, 1991, no. 91.
• Japan touring exhibition (Tobu, Daimaru Kyoto, Daimaru Umeda, Ibaraki), 1992–93.
• Paris, Musée du Luxembourg, L’ange au visage grave, 2002, no. 110, presented as the last painting.
• London, Royal Academy of Arts, Modigliani and His Models, 2006, no. 52.
• Moscow, Pushkin Museum, Meeting Modigliani, 2007.
• Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Modigliani y su tiempo, 2008.
• Bonn, 2009, no. 126.
• London, Tate Modern, 2017–2018.
• Brasília, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, 2018–2019.
• Numerous displays of the MAC USP permanent collection in São Paulo, 1977–2019, as listed in this investigation.

Notes

Listed as no. 322 in the D’Atri papers, size 92 × 60 cm (does not match the museum measurement), dated 1919, Paris; provenance Zborowski > Netter > Gualino.

Included in the Modigliani Technical Research Study published in The Burlington Magazine, May 2018. Infrared examination showed charcoal underdrawing with diluted black outlines; colour applied in thin transparent layers; outlines reinforced with a fine brush. Pigments reported: chrome yellow; lead and zinc white; vermilion; ochre; zinc yellow; bone or ivory black; no blue detected (probably an organic colourant). Ground: lead white. The authors describe a short, economical palette of small-scale industrial oils.
Technical note: One study has raised a possible use of tempera. That does not replace the museum’s cataloguing of the work as oil on canvas.

1983 restoration. The report states that the intervention involved:

• a second lining, while preserving the original stretcher
• removal of the varnish layer
• replacement with Dammar varnish

The restoration report was dated 22 February 1983 and signed by restorer Thomas Christian Brixa.

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