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Artwork

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Year:
Theme: Portrait
ID 34 (Ceroni 249)
Girl in a Sailor's Blouse
1918
Alternate titles: Busto di giovane donna con colletto alla marinara, in fronte; El coll de mariner; Jeune femme au col marin; Jeune fille; Jeune fille au col marin; Le Col marin; Marie Féret; Portrait de jeune fille; Portrait jeune fille; Portrait of a Young Girl; Ritratto di giovane donna
Oil on canvas
25 3/4 x 18 1/4 in. (65.4 x 46.4 cm)
Front, upper right: modigliani
Reverse no longer visible
Creation location: Cagnes-sur-Mer
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Gift of Charles F. Iklé, 1960. (60.118)
Provenance
Leopold Zborowski, Paris (by 1922)1
Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (June 6, 1922)2
[The New Gallery, New York (by November 1922)]3
Charles F. Iklé, New York (by 1923)4
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, by gift (1960)5
1. Guy-Patrice Dauberville and Floriane Dauberville, Modigliani: Amedeo Modigliani Chez Bernheim-Jeune (Paris: Éditions Bernheim-Jeune, 2015), 92.
2. Ibid.
3. The painting was consigned by Galerie Bernheim-Jeune to the New Gallery in November 1922, where it was exhibited two months later. By then it had already been sold to the New York collector Charles F. Iklé (1879–1963) who is credited as the lender to the exhibition. The New Gallery, New York, Third Exhibition: Paintings. Exh. cat. (January 9–30, 1923), no. 19.
4. Ibid.
5. Metropolitan Museum of Art website.
Commentary

In March 1918, World War I entered a new phase when the Germans began bombing Paris. The art dealer Léopold Zborowski (1889–1932) made the arrangements for a small group, including Modigliani, Jeanne Hébuterne (1898–1920), and Chaim Soutine (1893–1943), to relocate to the South of France. By April, the group had settled in Cagnes-sur-Mer and in July they moved to Nice. While in the Midi region, due to a dearth of models, Modigliani often painted local townspeople, servants, and children.

The model in this portrait has been identified as Marie Féret, a young servant girl in Cagnes, who also served as Modigliani's model for La Jeune bonne (Ceroni 248).1 Though her name has remarkably been preserved, Féret's identity has not yet been confirmed.

The work was first shown in the United States at the New Gallery in New York, in its Third Exhibition, which opened on January 3, 1923. By that time the gallery had already sold the portrait to art collector and patron Charles Iklé (1879–1963), representing the first known sale of a Modigliani painting in the United States.

Canvas information
This work has a frame-like painted border around the composition, a common feature found in several of the artist’s paintings, which is typically but not consistently black. This device was likely used for the sizing of the canvas in the absence of a wooden strainer.2

  1. Charles Sterling and Margaretta M. Salinger, French Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art Vol. 3, XIX–XX Centuries (Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society in association with Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1967), 240.
  2. For more on the artist's use of painted frames, see Annette King, Nancy Ireson, Simonetta Fraquelli, and Joyce H. Townsend, "An Introduction to Modigliani's Materials and Techniques," The Burlington Magazine CLX (March 2018): 186.
Exhibitions
1923 New York
The New Gallery, New York, Third Exhibition: Paintings, January 9–30, 1923, no. 19, as Jeune fille.
1924a New York
The New Gallery, New York, European Exhibition, January 8–February 1924, no. 24, as Jeune fille.
1925 New York
The New Gallery, New York, Modern French Exhibition, January 31–February 14, 1925, no. 32, as Portrait jeune fille.
1957 New York
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Impressionist and Modern Paintings from Private Collections: Summer Loan Exhibition, July 11–August 31, 1957.
Published References
Rosenberg 1923
Rosenberg, James N. New Pictures and the New Gallery. New York: The New Gallery, 1923, unnum. pl, ill. in b/w, as Jeune fille.
Bulliet 1927
Bulliet, C.J. Apples and Madonnas: Emotional Expression in Modern Art. Chicago: Pascal Covici, Publisher, Inc., 1927, ill. in b/w, n.p. (opp. p. 151), as Jeune fille.
Pfannstiel 1929
Pfannstiel, Arthur. Modigliani: catalogue présumé. Paris: Éditions Marcel Seheur, 1929. Monograph, Catalogue p. 33, as Le Col marin, dated 1917.
Basler 1931
Basler, Adolphe. Modigliani. Paris: Les Éditions G. Crès et Cie, 1931. Monograph, no. 17, ill. in b/w, as Le Col marin, dated 1917.
Merli 1934
Merli, Joan. "Amedeo Modigliani." Art: publicació de la Junta Municipal d'Exposicions d'Art (Barcelona) 1, no. 5 (February 1934), ill. in b/w, p. 151, as El coll de mariner, dated 1917.
Descargues 1951
Descargues, Pierre. Amedeo Modigliani, 1884–1920. Paris: Les Editions Braun et Cie, 1951. Monograph, no. 29, ill. in b/w, as Le col marin, dated 1917.
Pfannstiel 1956
Pfannstiel, Arthur. Modigliani et son œuvre. Paris: Bibliotèque des Arts, 1956. Monograph, no. 202, as Le col marin.
Ceroni 1970
Ceroni, Ambrogio. I dipinti di Modigliani. Milan: Rizzoli Editore, 1970. Monograph, no. 249, p. 101, ill. in b/w, p. 100, as Busto di giovane donna con colletto alla marinara, in fronte.
Dauberville and Dauberville 2015
Dauberville, Guy-Patrice and Floriane Dauberville. Amedeo Modigliani Chez Bernheim-Jeune. Paris: Éditions Bernheim-Jeune, 2015. Monograph, no. 27, ill. in b/w, p. 93, as Le col marin.
Model
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Record last updated April 10, 2026. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Modigliani Initiative. "Girl in a Sailor's Blouse, 1918 (ID 34)." In Amedeo Modigliani Digital Catalogue. catalogue.modigliani-initiative.org/catalogue/entry.php?SystemID=1 (accessed on May 11, 2026).