Lotto 17 | AMEDEO MODIGLIANI

Wannenes - Auditorium, Via Cornaggia 8, 20123 Milano

AMEDEO MODIGLIANI

AMEDEO MODIGLIANI

Livorno 1884 - Parigi 1920

La Marseillaise, 1913-14

Matita su carta, cm 53 x 41

Firmato in basso a destra

Provenienza:

Galleria del Milione, Milano

Collezione privata, Milano

Esposizioni:

Mostra di Modigliani. Associazione fra gli amatori e i cultori delle arti figurative, aprile ; maggio 1946, Milano, ill. cat. n. 24

Work of Modigliani and Soutine, 31 gennaio ; 18 marzo 1951, Cleveland Museum of Art

Modigliani paintings drawings sculpture, 10 aprile ; 10 giugno 1951, Museum of Modern Art, New York, cit. cat. p. 53

Bibliografia:

A.Ceroni, Amedeo Modigliani. Peintre. Suivi des 'souvenirs' de Lunia Czechowska, Milano, 1958, ill. p. 15 e cit. p. 70

J.Lanthemann, Modigliani 1884 ; 1920. Catalogue Raisonné, 1970, ill. p. 323 e cit. n. 653, p. 144

The artwork has the label of the 'Galleria del Milione' on the verso and is registered in the archives of the same gallery with the number 2071. It is interesting to note that is indicated the location of via Brera 21 in Milan. We know in fact that the gallery was housed there from 1930, the year of its foundation, to 1943, the year the building was destroyed by an incendiary bomb. It is therefore very likely that Modigliani's drawing was acquired by the owner's family in the 1930s, certainly before 1943 and plausibly before the Second World War. Moreover, in the catalogue of the 'Modigliani exhibition' of 1946, promoted by the 'Associazione fra gli amatori e i cultori delle arti figurative', the work is described as belonging to the 'Coll. dott. ..., Milan'. A few years later, the drawing was lent to an important exhibition in 1951, organised by the Museum of Modern Art in New York in collaboration with the Cleveland Museum of Art (the related labels are still conserved on the back) and remembered in the catalogue as 'Lent by ..., Milan'. It was the 1950s that marked a turning point in the appreciation of Modigliani's artistic work. The 'Galleria del Milione' in Italy and the monumental retrospective signed by the MoMA in the United States recognised the artist's international success that he had not achieved until then. The drawing was published seven years later, together with eight others, as an example of Modigliani's modus operandi, by Ambrogio Ceroni in the 1958 catalogue of paintings. In 1970 it was also included in the catalogue raisonné compiled by Joseph Lanthemann.