AMEDEO MODIGLIANI (1884-1920) NU ASSIS, VERS 1910 Crayon... Lot 12

AMEDEO MODIGLIANI (1884-1920) NU ASSIS, VERS 1910 Crayon gras sur papier vergé filigrané 'Old Mora Mill' avec un monogramme 'CV' Signed and dated 'lundi 7 juillet' lower left Signed a second time lower right Restorations Wax pencil on laid paper watermarked 'Old Mora Mill' with a monogram 'CV'; signed and dated 'lundi 7 juillet' lower left ; signed again lower right ; restorations 39,5 X 53 CM - 15 1/2 X 20 7/8 IN. An extract from the Amedeo Modigliani Legal Archives of Christian Parisot, dated November 10, 2002, will be given to the buyer. PROVENANCE Collection Docteur Gaillard, Aix-les-Bains. Private collection, France. Sale, Tajan, Paris, Espace Tajan, 7 May 2010, lot 212. Acquired during this sale by the present owner. Private collection, France. BIBLIOGRAPHY Christian Parisot, Modigliani, Catalogue raisonné, Dessins, aquarelles, tome III, Edizioni Carte Segrete, Rome: 2006, no. 69-10, p. 76 (reproduced in black and white) and p. 265 (described). EXHIBITIONS Modigliani y la escuala de Paris, Caixa, Girona, Segovia and Barcelona, 2002, no. 64. Modigliani, Hébuterne et les artistes de Montmartre et Montparnasse, Ancona and Caserta, 2003. "Amedeo Modigliani's artistic personality emerges from his work as a draughtsman, from the very beginning of his activity, which he began in Paris at the age of twenty-two. Before his departure for Paris in 1906, he executed in Italy some paintings and some drawings; but they are only simple memories or testimonies of scholastic attempts, born of his short frequentation of the studio of the painter macchiaiolo Guglielmo Micheli, between two illnesses, or of his irregular presence to the courses of the academy of the Fine Arts of Venice. The true masters of Modigliani are the masterpieces of the past that he saw at leisure and loved in his youth in the museums of Rome, Naples, Florence and Venice. [...] Modigliani is what we call a born draftsman; from the beginning, his pencil stroke is based on the value of the pure line, always drawn without hesitation, without ever repenting, perfect and already original. Drawing is for him more than a necessity, it is a spontaneous flowering. He draws ceaselessly, even at the café, and not for the sake of exhibition, and even less for the possibility of immediate gain. He rarely uses chiaroscuro and sparingly. His drawing acquires such great purity in the last years that it becomes extremely lyrical. In the nudes, his line became soft and unfolded in profiles of perfect plastic form. Of his works executed from 1906 to 1913, apart from his drawings and sculptures, only thirty paintings remain, known in part, namely those originally collected by Dr. Paul Alexandre, his first collector." Ambriogo Ceroni, Amedeo Modigliani, Painter, Followed by the 'Memories' of Lunia Czechowska, Edizioni del Milione, Milan: 1958, pp. 9 and 14.