Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) Busta di donna con testa di profile, 1916 Pencil on paper 10-1/4 x 8 inches (26.0 x 20.3 cm) Signed lower left: Modigliani PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF ELAINE AND PERRY SNYDERMAN PROVENANCE: Mrs. Donald Ogden Stewart, London; Annely Juda Fine Art, London; Judith L. Posner & Associates, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1983. EXHIBITED: The Hanover Gallery, London, "20th Century Drawings." LITERATURE: F. Russoli, Modiglani, Drawings and Sketches, New York, 1969, no. 50, illustrated; O. Patani, Amedeo Modiglani: Catalogo generale, disegni 1906-1920, con i disegni provenienti dalla collezione Paul Alexandre (1906-1914), Milan, 1992, no. 205, p. 142, illustrated. NOTE: In his 1917 Bust of a woman with her head in profile, Amedeo Modigliani brilliantly achieves a portrait of a rich interior mind by utilizing an economy of lines, variously faint and wispy or darkened with pressure or cross-hatching. With her mask-like features, bowed head, and hands clasped to her chest, the woman is a literal circle of insularity, her thoughts private and impenetrable. The art historian Franco Russoli has speculated that this drawing depicts Modigliani’s lover Beatrice Hastings, the British writer, poet, and literary critic, recognizable by her flapper’s bob haircut. HID03101062020 © 2020 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved See More