He was a Milanese born banker, appraisal for auction houses and later an art critic or historian who died in 1970.

His 3 publications, 1958 - 1970 - 1972 are used today as the only source and were at his time considered as a fully respectable and unique source.

He only covered the period from 1906 (the arrival to Paris) to the death of the author.
None of the previous works are even mentioned.

He listed 337 paintings of a period of 13 years.

We must take his work as something to admire because he gathered many important and lost information, but always see it as something to start with.
Never as an ending point, just a few first steps.

As usually when all the sustent of a work is the "connosieurs" skills and the value of the eye, it has a short duration across time.

The only reason to keep it as the "source" in Modigliani actually is really because the others are so bad that he is the less worst...

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PLEASE NOTE

Ceroni's work is used (market & exhibit terms) as the only reliable source for Modigliani.

Some points to have in mind:

1. He said that he viewed and examined carefully all the works listed in person.
2. He named his work as a "catalogue raissone" of the Modigliani production.
3. He made at least 5 corrections across time of his catalogue, the last in 1972-3.
4. He used (or said to) all the reliable sources and updated frequently.
5. If a work by Modigliani is not in the Ceroni his value is zero for Sotheby's or Christie's.
6. Ceroni was not an art historian he was a banker and appraisal for art auction biz.

Some dosis of REALITY after a simple analysis of his work:

1. His catalogue can not be called "raisonne", it presents enormous gaps in dating, medium, titles, owners, works, etc.
   
   A catalogue raisonne means to be absolutelly exact, exhaustive and complete.
   Ceroni´s work shoul be called a "paintings recollection" a good one in comparation with others on Modi, but absolutelly not a Catalogue Raisonne.
   
   
2. He could not seen all the works live since there are mistakes totally obvious.
   
   Paintings painted both sides, only seen one side, enormous mistakes in supports, oil on canvas when it is wood or cardboard, wrong measures in many works, definitively a not
   reliable or trustable source for cataloguing.
   
   
3. His work was totally out of date in locations and works at the time of printing.
   
   In his last edition he did not changed many of the owners, measures or mediums when they were totally accesible.
   
   
4. He included several fakes in his catalogue that have silently vanished.
   
   Discover them by yourself...
   
   
5. His dating lacks of explanation and is totally out of use for the many mistakes it presents.
   
   It is impossible to read the art evolution in Modigliani because of works that come from the same year (the same painting sesion) are placed in diferent years.
   
   
6. He ommited some of the most glorious works by the livournese master.
   
   Remeber is "catalogue raissone" and that means he must include "all" his production. (not our issue how he solves things like lost or whatever, it is raissone... or not?).
   
   

I use as base " Modigliani the pictorial works", introduction by L. Piccioni. / Noguer Edit. Barcelona, 1972-77 (known as Rizzoli 1970).

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Here is a simple scheme of the catalogued works.

In red columns are corrections to his numbers because of mistakes in supports or not seen back of the paintings.

* On Modigliani
* On his art
* On fakes and forgers
* On the “experts”
---->Actual
--------> How to do an expertise
---->Past
--------> A. Ceroni
--------> 1906-14
--------> 1915
--------> 1916
--------> 1917
--------> 1918
--------> 1919
--------> Key works not included
---->References
* On the Market
* On the Museums

* On Modigliani
* On the “experts”
* Other