Woman head in profile

Identification

Title

English: Woman head in profile.
Notes: Testa di donna di profilo (Ceroni); Portrait de style nègre (G. Charpentier, Paris, 1958); Portrait of black style (Musée Cantini, Marseille, 1958).

Date

1914- 1915?
Notes: 1915 (Ceroni); 1914 (Paris and Marseille, 1958)

Medium

Oil on canvas ?

Dimensions

Unknown?
Notes: 33 × 27 cm (Ceroni); 41 × 33 cm (Galerie Charpentier, 1958).

Signature

"modigliani" lower left

Present location

?
Notes: Parigi, proprietà privata" (Ceroni)

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

Not recorded in this investigation.

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.

• Lanthemann, Modigliani, catalogue raisonné: sa vie, son œuvre, son art, Barcelona, 1970, no. 44¹
• Ceroni & Piccioni, I dipinti di Modigliani, Milan. 1970, no. 48²
• Patani, Catalogo Generale, Leonardo ed. Milano 1991-94³

Exhibitions

• Paris, Cent Tableaux de Modigliani, Galerie Charpentier, 1958 - no. 18
• Marseille, Modigliani, Musée Cantini, 1958 - no. 3

Notes

This is one of the paintings that has not been seen for years and years and is almost impossible to obtain a better photo or to see it in exhibitions.

Where sources disagree, both readings are given. This is a working research page, not a catalogue raisonné.

Introduction

Ceroni's no. 48 is a small head, painted on a dark and greenish ground, of a sitter whose face is turned towards the viewer's right. Its nose is drawn as a long, sharp-edged wedge. Ceroni captions it "Testa di donna di profilo, Parigi, proprietà privata" (Head of a woman in profile, Paris, private property) and adds no note. It is one of the least documented works in the Ceroni catalogue. The Secret Modigliani page on the work says it is "one of the paintings that has not been seen for years and years and is almost impossible to obtain a better photo or to see it in exhibitions". The page gives no provenance and no present location, and it marks the medium and the size with question marks. It knows of only two exhibitions, both in 1958.
Two facts emerge when the Secret Modigliani exhibition pages for those two shows are read alongside the page on the work. The first is that the picture was exhibited in 1958 with a different title. In the Galerie Charpentier exhibition of that year, no. 18 is "Portrait de style nègre", dated 1914 and measuring 41 × 33 cm. In the Marseille exhibition, no. 3 is given in English as "Portrait of black style", 1914.
This essay starts from the only available reproduction, which is low in resolution and has been photographed from a printed plate. It describes what that image allows and sets the picture against the "mask" portraits of 1914–15.

Composition and format

The page's reproduction has a width-to-height ratio of 0.806. Ceroni's 33 × 27 cm gives 0.818. The 41 × 33 cm of the 1958 Paris exhibition gives 0.805. Either size fits the image, so the reproduction cannot decide between them. If the 1958 dimensions are right, the picture corresponds to the French standard 6 Figure canvas (41 × 33 cm). Ceroni's dimensions would not correspond to a standard size. Both are small formats, and the head fills most of the surface.
The head is set slightly left of centre. Its top is cut by the upper edge, and the neck descends to the bottom edge. The face is turned to the viewer's right, so the nose projects towards the right side of the picture. The far side of the face, beyond the nose, is in shadow. The near side, on the viewer's left, is lit and broad, and an ear is visible at its edge. The neck is a long column, broader than the chin. It is cut off at the bottom by a light, greenish passage that may be the collar or top of a garment.
The background is divided vertically. On the left, behind the ear and the back of the head, it is dark, almost black, with a reddish-brown patch at the upper left. On the right, beyond the line of the nose and the shadowed cheek, it is a lighter grey-green, painted in broken strokes. A pale, almost white passage descends diagonally across the lower right corner. In it, at the very bottom right edge, there is a small dark-outlined form, open at the top, like the rim of a cup or glass. The resolution of the image does not allow me to say more. The signature, "modigliani", is written small in dark paint in the lower left corner on the green of the garment.

Line

This is a picture in which drawing is decisive. The most striking line is the one that defines the nose. It runs from the hairline in a single straight stroke, inclined to the right, down to the tip, and returns in a short horizontal to the nostril. The nose so formed is a long triangle, flat and sharp, like the profile of a carved wooden mask rather than a human nose seen in three-quarter view. A second line, parallel to the first, marks the far edge of the nose against the shadowed cheek. The brows are horizontal and almost straight. The eyes are two small dark almond shapes set on a level, both visible as if the face were frontal. The combination of a profile nose with a frontal pair of eyes is exactly the Cubist device that the title "di profilo" registers only in part. The mouth is a small dark-red shape, almost a knot, with a vertical stroke below it for the cleft of the chin.
The jaw is drawn as a long, continuous curve. It sweeps from below the ear to the narrow chin and gives the face a sharply pointed, inverted-triangle shape. The contour of the neck is drawn in dark lines on both sides. The line of the shoulder or collar at the lower right is drawn freely, in a long diagonal stroke. Throughout, the line is not merely an outline. It has its own thickness and colour, dark brown to black, and it is applied with the brush over the colour fields.

Colour

In the reproduction, the face and neck are a strong, warm orange shading to red at the mouth and in the shadows. There is little modelling. The colour is almost uniform across the broad lit side of the face, and the shadowed side is distinguished mainly by line. This saturated orange against a dark ground anticipates the Tête rouge of 1915 (Ceroni no. 50), with which the present picture belongs. The Pompidou describes the colour of that picture as "sanguine" and compares its "chromatisme" with the Fauves.
The grey-green of the background on the right and the green of the garment at the bottom are the complementary of the orange. The contrast is clearly intended: the orange face is placed between a black zone and a green zone, which push it forward. The cream and white passage at the lower right adds a light accent that balances the dark upper left. The colours of a reproduction from a printed plate are not reliable, and the actual tones may be different. The broad design of warm head against cool and dark grounds is, however, clear.

Facture

As far as the image allows, the face is painted in a smooth, continuous layer. The surface is matt, and the brushstrokes are barely visible except at the edges. The background, on the contrary, is broken and scumbled, especially on the right, where the green is dragged over a lighter layer. The pale passage at the lower right is painted with a dry brush that leaves the colour patchy. This contrast between a flat, firmly drawn face and a rapid, sketchy surround is common in Modigliani's heads of 1915. The Tête rouge is painted in the same way, and the Pompidou describes its "technique cézannienne d'esquisse" (Cézannian sketch technique) and its "fa presto de la touche" (rapidity of touch).
The reproduction gives no sure indication of the support. The broken texture of the background would fit either a canvas or a board.

Figure and space

Space is almost suppressed. The head is pressed against the picture plane. The background offers no depth and is divided into flat zones of dark and light, like the stage flats of a theatre. The turn of the head and the projection of the nose create the only movement in depth, and that movement is immediately flattened by the frontal eyes. The result is an image that hovers between portrait and sculpture. The face has the frontal, symmetrical presence of a carved head, while the turned nose and the visible ear suggest a figure seen from the side.
The sitter's individuality is reduced to a few signs: the dark cap of hair, cut straight at the forehead and the nape; the small ear; the pointed chin. Ceroni calls the sitter a woman, but the image does not establish the sex. The short hair and the absence of any ornament make the head ambiguous. The 1958 title, "Portrait de style nègre", does not name a sex either. It names a style, which is what the picture is about.

Iconography and sitter

The 1958 title explains how the painting was understood in the generation after Modigliani. "Style nègre" was the term of the period for the influence of African sculpture on Parisian art. The Modigliani Initiative writes that Modigliani "was inspired by the simplified forms of African art that he had access to in the gallery of Paul Guillaume (1891–1934) and the residence of Frank Burty Haviland (1886–1971)". The Jewish Museum's label for Lola de Valence (Ceroni no. 49), discussed next in this batch, puts the matter directly: "the dancer's face is essentially an African mask". The present head has the long triangular nose, the small mouth, the pointed chin and the closed planes of the Lola, at a smaller scale. The Pompidou's text on the Tête rouge lists the mask features of "masques Fang du Gabon" in that picture: "ovale fin du visage, dissymétrie, nez en quart de brie, yeux bouchés, bouche minuscule" (fine oval of the face, asymmetry, nose like a wedge of brie, blocked eyes, tiny mouth). Most of these terms apply here as well.
The identity of the sitter is unknown. No source I have consulted names one. A portrait of a specific person is not excluded, but the picture is built as a variation on a type.

Comparisons

The closest comparisons are within this batch. Lola de Valence (Ceroni no. 49) pushes the same idea to its limit. In that picture the head is seen in true profile, the nose descends from the forehead in an unbroken wedge, and the face is a single flat plane. The Tête rouge (Ceroni no. 50) shows the same saturated orange flesh and the same contrast of a drawn head against a dark sketchy ground. That head, however, is frontal, and its eyes are asymmetrical. The present picture is between the two: a three-quarter head, with a profile nose and frontal eyes.
Tate Papers, no. 35 offers an external point of comparison. Writing about the portrait of Hastings in front of a fireplace (C58), the authors note that the nose in an X-radiographed underlying figure "is reminiscent of the 'cubist' portraits that Modigliani painted in 1915". In the Chicago portrait, they say, "the nose is flattened with exaggerated triangular nostrils and the lips are bisected with vertical and horizontal lines". The present head belongs to the same family of "cubist" heads of 1915. Its nose is a flat triangle, and its mouth is a small knot crossed by a vertical stroke.
The 1914 date of the 1958 exhibitions would place the picture among Modigliani's first paintings after sculpture. Ceroni's 1915 would place it beside the Lola and the Tête rouge. The style supports Ceroni. The linear, mask-like construction is closest to the works of 1915, though a date of late 1914 cannot be excluded.

Provenance and exhibitions

The Secret Modigliani page gives no provenance. Ceroni's caption says "Parigi, proprietà privata", and the 1958 Paris exhibition, according to the Secret Modigliani exhibition page, lists the owner as "P. C." (private collection). The page gives two exhibitions:

• Paris, Galerie Charpentier, Cent Tableaux de Modigliani, 1958, no. 18. The Secret Modigliani exhibition page lists no. 18 as "Portrait de style nègre P. C. 1914 41 x 33".
• Marseille, Musée Cantini, Modigliani, 1958, no. 3. The Secret Modigliani exhibition page lists no. 3 as "1914 Portrait of black style".

Discrepancies

• Dimensions. 33 × 27 cm (Ceroni) against 41 × 33 cm (Paris, 1958). The reproduction cannot decide between them.
• Title and date in 1958. Both 1958 exhibitions called the picture a "Portrait de style nègre" (or the equivalent) and dated it 1914. Ceroni calls it a "Testa di donna di profilo" and dates it 1915.
• Medium. "Oil on canvas ?" (page) and oil on canvas (list of Ceroni numbers). There is no other source.

Technical analysis

No technical study of this work exists, as far as I can find. Its present location is unknown, and the only available image is a low-resolution reproduction of a printed plate. Nothing can be said about its support, ground or pigments beyond what the reproduction shows. The flat orange of the face, the dark contour lines and the dragged green of the background are visible only in general terms.
The questions an examination would need to answer can be stated from comparative evidence. King, Ireson, Fraquelli and Townsend report that "a large number of canvases had painted borders and, in one case, pencil lines beneath the paint that define the limits of the image". The reproduction shows no painted border, but it may be cropped. The same article notes that the canvases studied "seem to have been commercially prepared with an oil-based priming". Tate Papers, no. 35 shows that several of Modigliani's paintings of these years lie over earlier compositions, so X-radiography would be the first step for any small canvas of 1914–15. None of this applies to the present work until it is found and examined.

Conclusion

Head of a woman in profile is a small, compact demonstration of the mask idea that runs through Modigliani's painting of 1915. A profile nose cut like a wedge of wood is set between frontal eyes, and a head of flat orange is set against a dark and green ground. The 1958 title of the picture, "Portrait de style nègre", names its source more frankly than Ceroni's descriptive title. Its relationship to Lola de Valence and the Tête rouge, the next two works in Ceroni's sequence, places it in the same moment, and the style supports Ceroni's date of 1915.
The work has not been seen in public since 1958. Its documentation on the Secret Modigliani page is thin and partly inconsistent: the Lanthemann and Ceroni numbers are swapped in the bibliography, and the size and date are uncertain. Any future work on the picture should start by locating the 1958 Paris and Marseille catalogues, which would establish at least the size and the lender in 1958.

Museum, auction and exhibition sources

• The Modigliani Initiative, Amedeo Modigliani Digital Catalogue, "Lola de Valence (AMDC 30)", https://catalogue.modigliani-initiative.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=30 (for Modigliani's sources in African art; the Modigliani Initiative does not publish this work)
• Centre Pompidou, Tête rouge, AM 4286 P, https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/ressources/oeuvre/cgzzRxy (comparative, for the mask features)
• The Jewish Museum, New York, Modigliani Unmasked, wall texts and object labels, https://thejewishmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Modigliani_Unmasked_wall_texts_and_object_labels.pdf (label for Lola de Valence)

Technical literature (comparative)

• Annette King, Nancy Ireson, Simonetta Fraquelli and Joyce H. Townsend, "The Modigliani Technical Research Study: An introduction to Modigliani's materials and techniques", The Burlington Magazine, vol. 160, no. 1380 (March 2018), https://www.burlington.org.uk/archive/article/the-modigliani-technical-research-study-an-introduction-to-modiglianis-materials-and-techniques (comparative)
• Anaïs Genty-Vincent et al., "Works by Modigliani that have Paintings beneath the Visible Surface", Tate Papers, no. 35, https://www.tate.org.uk/research/tate-papers/35/works-by-modigliani-that-have-paintings-beneath-the-visible-surface (comparative)

Cited but not independently consulted

Lanthemann, Modigliani, catalogue raisonné, 1970, no. 44 (given as no. 48 in the bibliography); Ceroni and Piccioni, I dipinti di Modigliani, 1970 (given as 1972), no. 48 (given as no. 44 in the bibliography); Patani, Catalogo generale, 1991–94. Page and catalogue numbers are given without the footnote digits the page attaches to them; the numbers are taken from the page's catalogue table, which agrees with Ceroni. All are cited from the Secret Modigliani page on the work.