Secret Modigliani

Portrait of Madame Othon Friesz. La Marseillaise

Oil on paper? — 1915

Date1915
MediumOil and Chercoal on paper
Size42.5 x 26 cm?
CollectionDenver Art Museum, Denver
SignatureUnsigned
Investigation15-15

La marsellaise or Mme. Othon Friesz by Amedeo Modigliani

Identification

Title
English: Portrait of Madame Othon Friesz. La Marseillaise.
Notes: Portrait of Madame Othon Friesz. La Marseillaise (Denver Art Museum); La Marsigliese (Ceroni); La Marseillaise (Ceroni, 1970)
Date
1915
Notes: inscribed 15 GIUGNO (15 June) on the work (Ceroni's note)
Medium
Oil and Chercoal on paper
Notes: Oil and charcoal on paper (Denver Art Museum); oil on paper (Ceroni)
Dimensions
42.5 x 26 cm (R 43.5 x 26.5 - Ceroni 42 x 27 cm)
Notes: Image 42.5450 × 26.0350 cm (Denver Art Museum); 43.5 × 26.5 cm (MR) and 42 × 27 cm (Ceroni).
Signature
Unsigned.
Notes: inscribed LA MARSELLAISE at the top, 15 GIUGNO, Hommage at the left, respectueux at the right, MADAME FRIESZ at the centre left, and a further line that may read il Fiume a..., ?
Present location
Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado, USA ( Inv. no. 1974.388)

Catalogue numbers

Compiler Number
Arthur PfannstielNO
Joseph Lanthemannno. 671
Ambrogio Ceronino. 85
Jeanne ModiglianiYES
Christian ParisotYES
Osvaldo Patanino. 87
Modigliani Project?
MRYES
Modigliani Initiative/ AMDC?

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. Hanley Coll. (until 1974)
  2. Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado, USA
  3. The T. Edward and Tullah Hanley Memorial Gift to the People of Denver and the area, no. Inv. 1974.388

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.

Exhibitions

Notes

Not in D'Atri papers ?

The Denver Art Museum confirms Portrait of Madame Othon Friesz. La Marseillaise (inv. 1974.388), 1915, The T. Edward and Tullah Hanley Memorial Gift to the People of Denver and the area, 1974.

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


Introduction


La Marseillaise is a portrait drawing heightened with oil, in which the head and neck of a woman are set against the bare paper, framed by a large dark hat or mass of hair and surrounded by inscriptions. The title is written across the top of the sheet, a date runs down the left side, and the words Hommage and respectueux, at the left and right, address the work as a respectful tribute. The Denver Art Museum, which owns the work, and the Secret Modigliani page identify the sitter as Madame Othon Friesz, the wife of the French painter.
The work is one of the most lightly worked in Ceroni's catalogue of paintings. Most of the sheet is untouched paper, and the colour is limited to a few areas of blue dots and dark scumbling around the head, the neck and the shoulders. Tate Papers, no. 35, by Anaïs Genty-Vincent et al., cites the work, with Rosa Porprina, Ceroni no. 84, as one of two works of 1915 that use dots to establish the outlines of forms. For this essay I opened the Secret Modigliani page on the work, the Denver Art Museum's page on the work and its page on Teresa, another work from the Hanley gift, the transcription of Ceroni's catalogue on modigliani1909.com, Tate Papers, no. 35, and the French and English Wikipedia articles on Othon Friesz.
Descriptions of the image are my reading of the reproduction used here, unless attributed to another source. The image linked from the Secret Modigliani page on the work could not be loaded; the reproduction used is the one at https://www.secretmodigliani.com/year/119b.jpg, from the same site.

Composition and format

In my measurement, the reproduction used here has a proportion of height to width of 1.634, and the Ceroni plate the same, 1.634. The image size given by the Denver Art Museum, 42.5450 × 26.0350 cm, gives 1.634, and the size of 42.5 × 26 cm on the Secret Modigliani page 1.635. MR's size of 43.5 × 26.5 cm, according to the same page, gives 1.64. Ceroni's size of 42 × 27 cm gives 1.56, and in my measurement it is less consistent with the photographs.
The head occupies the upper half of the sheet and is set slightly to the left of the vertical axis. It is crowned by a large, rounded dark form, which in my reading is a hat or a turban-like headdress, extending from the left side of the head to the right edge of the sheet. The face is a long oval, left blank, with the features drawn in its upper part. The neck is long and narrow, and descends to the lower third of the sheet, where the shoulders are indicated by a few blue strokes at the lower edge.
The inscriptions form a frame around the head. LA MARSEILLA is written in large capitals across the top, rising from left to right, and the word is completed, in my reading, by looping letters at the upper right. 15 and GIUGNO run down the left side beside the hat. Hommage is written diagonally at the lower left, and respectueux at the right, at the level of the neck. In my reading, the text and the figure are composed together: the title arches over the head like a banner, and the dedication brackets the neck.

Line

The face is drawn with a few thin dark lines. The eyebrows are a long, slightly curved line over each eye, the left joined to the line of the nose. The eyes are almond shapes, each with a small dark pupil. The nose is a long straight line ending in a small hooked tip with two nostrils. The mouth is small, and below it a short vertical line marks the chin. The contour of the face at the left is drawn faintly, and at the right is defined by the dark edge of the hair.
The neck is bounded by two long vertical lines, partly in a dark green or black and partly in blue, which descend from the jaw to the shoulders. Along these lines, and along the lower edge of the hat, run rows of blue dots. Tate Papers, no. 35, states that this work and Rosa Porprina "show the use of dots to establish the outlines of forms". In my reading, the dots here follow the contour of the hat, the hair at the right and the outer edge of the neck, and they reinforce the drawn line rather than replacing it.
The inscriptions are drawn with the same pencil or charcoal as the figure. The capitals of the title are irregular, with an M and an S of different heights, and the looping letters at the upper right are in a cursive hand. Hommage and respectueux are in a fluent cursive. A small drawing, in my reading of a building with windows, appears at the top of the hat at the left. The Secret Modigliani page reports a further line of text below the title, which it reads, with a query, as il Fiume a...; in the reproduction used here, I cannot read it.

Colour

The work is almost monochrome. The paper, which appears pale cream in the reproduction, forms the face, the neck and the background. The hat and hair are scumbled in a dark grey-black, with a slight blue tinge, and dotted with a stronger violet-blue. The neck and the shoulders are touched with the same blue, in dots and short strokes, and with a dark green or black line. The inscriptions and the features are in grey pencil or charcoal.
In my reading, the restraint of the colour is deliberate. The blue dots are the only accent, and they are placed at the edges of forms, so that the figure is outlined in colour while its interior remains white. The effect is that of a drawing in which colour serves the line.
The Denver Art Museum gives the medium as oil and charcoal on paper. In my reading, the scumbled dark areas around the head may be charcoal, rubbed or smudged, and the blue dots oil, applied with the tip of a brush, but this cannot be confirmed from the reproduction.

Facture

The handling is rapid and economical. The dark mass of the hat is laid in with broad, scumbled strokes, which leave the grain of the paper visible. The blue dots are applied in rows, close together along the lower edge of the hat and more widely spaced on the neck and shoulders. The lines of the face are drawn without correction, in my reading, while the outline of the neck is restated, with a second line beside the first at the left.
The lower part of the sheet is almost empty. Below the neck, a few faint lines and blue strokes indicate the shoulders and the top of a garment, and at the lower edge some smudged dark marks may be the beginning of a collar or the edge of the drawing. In my reading, the work stops at the point where the head and neck are fully characterised, and the rest of the figure is left as a suggestion.
The paper shows some faint marks, stains and creases in the reproduction. Their nature and whether they are original or the result of handling cannot be determined from the photograph.

Figure and space

The figure is frontal, with the head very slightly turned. There is no setting. The figure is placed against the bare paper, and the inscriptions occupy the space around it. In my reading, the space is that of the sheet, on which the figure and the words lie at the same level.
The face is calm, with a direct gaze. The long neck and the high, rounded headdress give the figure height and dignity. In my reading, the headdress also gives the figure a monumental quality, like that of a carved head, and the long neck and small mouth are consistent with the sculptural heads that Modigliani made before 1915.

Iconography and sitter

The sitter is identified by the Denver Art Museum and the Secret Modigliani page as Madame Othon Friesz. The Secret Modigliani page reports the inscription MADAME FRIESZ at the centre left. In my reading of the reproduction, I cannot read this inscription, which may be faint or may lie in the area of the hat.
Othon Friesz, according to French Wikipedia, was born in Le Havre on 6 February 1879 and died in Paris on 10 January 1949. He was associated with Fauvism, and French Wikipedia states that "De 1914 à son décès en 1949, il occupe un atelier au 73, rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs à Paris" (from 1914 until his death in 1949 he occupied a studio at 73 rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs in Paris). The same article lists his painting La Guerre, 1915, in the Musée de Grenoble, and states: "Son épouse est décédée en 1961" (his wife died in 1961). No source opened for this essay gives Madame Friesz's name or says how she met Modigliani.
The title La Marseillaise is inscribed on the sheet. Ceroni's caption, as transcribed, gives it in Italian, La Marsigliese. In my reading, the title may refer to the sitter's origin, to a nickname or to the national anthem, which in 1915, during the war, had a particular resonance. No source opened for this essay explains it, and these are my conjectures.
The date is inscribed in Italian. Ceroni's note states: "Assieme alla data, a sinistra, si legge 15 giugno a hommage respectueux" (with the date, at the left, one reads 15 June a hommage respectueux). The Secret Modigliani page reads the date as 15 GIUGNO, which it gives as 15th July. Giugno is the Italian for June, and in my reading the inscription is 15 GIUGNO. The combination of an Italian date and a French dedication is, in my reading, characteristic of an Italian artist working in Paris, and the dedication suggests that the work was a gift to the sitter or to her husband.

Comparisons

Rosa Porprina (Ceroni no. 84). The preceding work in Ceroni's sequence is also on paper, with pencil or crayon and oil, inscriptions and dotted contours. Tate Papers, no. 35, groups the two works. Rosa Porprina is more densely worked, with black oil blots and blue and red crayon, while La Marseillaise is lighter, with most of the sheet left empty. Both, in my reading, integrate words into the image: a title at the top and a place or a date at the bottom.
Beatrice Hastings, Hand on Right Cheek (Ceroni no. 82). That work, also on paper, shows Hastings in a large hat with a dotted brim. The present work shares the large headdress and the dotted edge, but leaves the background untouched.
Teresa, Denver Art Museum. Teresa, about 1915, in oil and pencil on paper, came to the Denver Art Museum with the present work as part of the same Hanley gift, under accession no. 1974.389, according to the museum's page. The two works represent the same moment of Modigliani's mixed-media drawing, in my reading, but I have not compared them in detail.
The sculpture. Tate Papers, no. 35, relates the use of dots in this work to Modigliani's sculptural practice and describes the less finished side of a carved head of 1911–1913 in the Centre Pompidou, where "outlines of the head are marked with holes made with a point chisel". In my reading, the high headdress, the long neck and the small features here also recall the carved heads. This is comparative.

Provenance and exhibitions

The Denver Art Museum gives the provenance as Galerie Zak, Paris; William Inge, New York; M. Knoedler & Co., New York, in parentheses; T. Edward Hanley, 1893–1969, Bradford, Pennsylvania, by 1961; gift to the Denver Art Museum, 1974. The credit line is The T. Edward and Tullah Hanley Memorial Gift to the People of Denver and the area. The Secret Modigliani page gives only the Hanley collection, until 1974, and the Denver Art Museum. Ceroni's caption, as transcribed, gives Bradford (Pennsylvania), property of T. Edward Hanley, and the Secret Modigliani list of Ceroni's paintings gives Hanley Coll., PN, with the comment Denver Art Museum.

The exhibitions given by the Denver Art Museum are: Midland, Texas, Museum of the Southwest, Selections from the Collection of Dr. and Mrs. T. Edward Hanley, 17 October to 12 November 1967; Buffalo, Canisius College, Works from the Hanley Collection at Canisius College, 23 November to 23 December 1969; Paris, Musée du Luxembourg, Modigliani: l'ange au visage grave, 2002, no. 23, pp. 186–187; Milan, Palazzo Reale, 2003, no. 19; Rome, Complesso del Vittoriano, Modigliani, 23 February to 18 June 2006, no. 10; Madrid, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Modigliani y su tiempo, 2008; and Bonn, Amedeo Modigliani: Ein Mythos der Moderne, 2009.

Discrepancies

  1. Provenance. The Denver Art Museum gives Galerie Zak, William Inge and Knoedler before Hanley.
  2. Exhibitions. The Secret Modigliani page does not include the exhibitions of 1967, 1969 and 2006 given by the Denver Art Museum.
  3. The title. The Secret Modigliani page transcribes the inscription as LA MARSELLAISE; in my reading, the inscription is LA MARSEILLA with further looped letters, and the Denver Art Museum gives La Marseillaise.
  4. Size. Ceroni gives 42 × 27 cm, the Denver Art Museum 42.5450 × 26.0350 cm, and MR 43.5 × 26.5 cm.
  5. Medium. Ceroni gives oil on paper; the Denver Art Museum oil and charcoal on paper.
  6. Hanley's dates. The Denver Art Museum gives Hanley's dates as 1893–1969 and the gift as 1974, and the credit line names the gift a memorial gift. In my inference, the gift was made after Hanley's death; this is not a contradiction, but it means that Hanley's ownership ended in 1969 and the work passed to the museum through his estate or his widow, a step the sources opened do not describe.

Technical analysis

No technical examination of the work has been opened. The following remarks are based on the reproduction and on comparative literature.
Media. The Denver Art Museum gives oil and charcoal on paper. In my reading, the dark scumbled areas of the hat are consistent with charcoal, and the blue dots and some of the lines with oil applied with a fine brush. The Burlington Magazine article by Annette King, Nancy Ireson, Simonetta Fraquelli and Joyce H. Townsend, "The Modigliani Technical Research Study. An introduction to Modigliani's materials and techniques", vol. 160, no. 1380 (March 2018), reports that drawing in the works studied "varied from clean graphite lines to ones made with thin brushes in paint of varying colours". This is comparative.
Dots. Tate Papers, no. 35, by Anaïs Genty-Vincent et al., names the present work, with Ceroni no. 84, for its use of dots to establish outlines, and relates this to the marks of the point chisel in Modigliani's sculpture. The article's technical evidence comes from other works; its remark on the present work is based on visual observation. This is comparative.
Paper. The reproduction shows marks and creases in the paper. Their nature cannot be determined from the photograph. Oil on paper can produce a halo of binder in the surrounding fibres; in my reading, some of the blue dots have a slightly diffused edge, but this is uncertain.
Frame. The Denver Art Museum gives frame dimensions of about 74.5 × 57.6 cm, much larger than the sheet. The work is evidently displayed with a wide mount.

Conclusion

La Marseillaise is a portrait drawing heightened with oil, in which a calm, frontal head under a large headdress is set on the bare paper and surrounded by inscriptions: the title across the top, the date in Italian at the left and a dedication in French. The figure is outlined in charcoal or pencil and in rows of blue dots, which Tate Papers, no. 35, relates to Modigliani's sculptural practice. The words and the figure are composed together, and most of the sheet remains empty.
The Denver Art Museum provides a provenance and exhibition history that the Secret Modigliani page does not include, with Galerie Zak, William Inge and Knoedler before Hanley, and exhibitions in 1967, 1969 and 2006. The Secret Modigliani page misreads the month of the inscription, giving July for giugno, and gives two different numbers for the exhibition of 2002. The identity of the sitter rests on the title and on an inscription that I could not read in the reproduction, and the meaning of the title remains unexplained.

Museum, auction and exhibition sources

  1. Denver Art Museum, Portrait of Madame Othon Friesz. La Marseillaise, accession no. 1974.388, https://www.denverartmuseum.org/en/object/1974.388
  2. Denver Art Museum, Teresa, accession no. 1974.389, https://www.denverartmuseum.org/en/object/1974.389
  3. Wikipédia, "Othon Friesz", https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othon_Friesz (biographical source)
  4. Wikipedia, "Othon Friesz", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othon_Friesz (biographical source)

Technical literature (comparative)

  1. 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 (names the present work; comparative for its technical context)
  2. 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) (comparative)

Sources that could not be opened

The image linked from the Secret Modigliani page on the work, https://www.secretmodigliani.com/year/15-15/LAMARSELLAISE.jpg, which returned a web page instead of an image; Denver Art Museum social-media and blog posts on the history of the Hanley gift, seen only in search results and not used; the catalogues of the exhibitions of 1967, 1969, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2008 and 2009 in printed form; any document on the Galerie Zak, William Inge or Knoedler ownerships.

Cited but not independently consulted

Lanthemann, Modigliani, catalogue raisonné, G. Condal, Barcelona, 1970, no. 671; Ceroni & Piccioni, I dipinti di Modigliani, Rizzoli, Milano, 1972, no. 85; Patani, Catalogo Generale, Leonardo, Milano, 1991–1994, no. 87; MR, L'Ange au visage grave, Musée du Luxembourg, Paris, 2002, no. 22, pp. 186–187; Parisot, Modigliani la vita le opere, Ed. Carte Secrete, Milano, 2006, no. 10; Soto Caba, Modigliani, The timeless face, Libsa, Madrid, 2007. Titles are given as the page gives them, without the footnote digits it attaches to them. All are cited from the Secret Modigliani page on the work.

Footnotes

  1. Joseph Lanthemann, Modigliani, catalogue raisonné: sa vie, son œuvre, son art, Barcelona, G. Condal, 1970.
  2. Ambrogio Ceroni and Leone Piccioni, I dipinti di Modigliani, Milan, Rizzoli, 1970.
  3. Osvaldo Patani, Amedeo Modigliani: catalogo generale, Milan, Leonardo, 1991–94.
  4. MR (cited here as MR), Modigliani: l’ange au visage grave, Paris, Musée du Luxembourg, 2002. Cited from the published exhibition catalogue only.
  5. Christian Parisot, Modigliani: la vita, le opere, Rome, Carte Segrete, 2006.
  6. Victoria Soto Caba, Modigliani: The Timeless Face, Madrid, Libsa, 2007.