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Artwork

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Year:
Theme: Portrait
ID 28 (Ceroni 43)
Reverie (Study for the Portrait of Frank Burty Haviland)
1914
Alternate titles: Frank Haviland; Frank Haviland (étude); Portrait de Frank Burty Haviland; Portrait du peintre Frank Haviland; Rêverie; Reverie (Frank Burty Haviland); Rêverie (Frank Haviland); Reverie (Portrait of Frank Burty Haviland); Rêverie - Portrait de Monsieur Burty; Ritratto di Frank Haviland; Studio per il "Ritratto di Frank Burty Haviland"
Oil and graphite on cardboard
24 1/2 x 19 1/2 in. (62.23 x 49.53 cm)
Not inscribed
Creation location: Paris, Burty Haviland studio: 3, rue Victor Schœlcher
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Mr. and Mrs. William Preston Harrison Collection. (27.7.2a)
Provenance
Frank Burty Haviland, Paris (1914)…1
Jacques Darnetal, Paris (by 1926)2
[Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Catalogue des tableaux modernes, aquarelles, dessins, October 20, 1926, lot 45]
Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris (October 20, 1926)3
Ada and William Preston Harrison, Los Angeles (1927)4
Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art, by gift (1927)5
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, by transfer (1961)6
1. Los Angeles County Museum of Art website.
2. Archives 162/10/1 vente du 20 octobre 1926, Alphonse Bellier, fonds Guy Loudmer. Institut national d'histoire de l'art (INHA), Paris. Darnetal, whose real name was Jacques Bernheim (1900–1938), was a French writer and the son of Georges Bernheim (1871–1946), an important art dealer in Paris who was unrelated to the Bernheim-Jeune family.
3. "Revue des ventes: Tableaux Modernes," Gazette de L'hôtel Drouot (October 21, 1926): 1. The buyer of both Modigliani paintings in the sale, "M. Bucker," was the Parisian art gallerist Jeanne Bucher (1872–1946). Her name is spelled correctly in the review of the sale although she is again identified as "Monsieur."
4. Los Angeles County Museum of Art website.
5. Ibid.
6. Stephanie Barron, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, email of February 7, 2026. Founded in 1910, the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art, transferred works of art to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1961.
Commentary

It was in 1914 in the studio of Frank Burty Haviland (1886–1971) where Modigliani resumed painting after having worked as a sculptor for several years.1 According to Adolphe Basler (1878–1951), the Polish-born art critic, Burty Haviland loaned Modigliani the necessary supplies and it seems plausible that Reverie, which has a figure study by Burty Haviland on the reverse, may have been one of Modigliani's first paintings. A member of the Haviland family, the well-known makers of porcelain, Frank Burty Haviland collected the artwork of his friends, including Juan Gris (1887–1927) and Pablo Picasso (1881–1973).2 He also had an exceptional collection of African art and, as Basler reports, his studio was where Modigliani became inspired by the unique forms of these objects.3 Modigliani painted a second portrait of Burty Haviland, which is also on cardboard (Ceroni 44). 

  1. Adolphe Basler, "Amadeo [sic] Modigliani," Le Crapouillot (August 1927): 14.
  2. Anna Jozefacka, "Frank Burty Haviland (also Frank Haviland and Frank Burty)," The Modern Art Index Project (July 2017), Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. https://doi.org/10.57011/MLMO4009
  3. Basler (1927), op. cit.
Exhibitions
1929 Los Angeles
Los Angeles County Museum, Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Preston Harrison Collection of Modern French Art, January 1929, no. 82, ill. in b/w, as Rêverie - Portrait de Monsieur Burty.
1956 Los Angeles
Los Angeles County Museum, [William Preston Harrison Collection], May 1956, as Rêverie.
Published References
Pfannstiel 1929
Pfannstiel, Arthur. Modigliani: catalogue présumé. Paris: Éditions Marcel Seheur, 1929. Monograph, Catalogue p. 7, as Rêverie.
Langsner 1956
Langsner, Jules. "Art news from Los Angeles." ArtNews (New York) 55, no. 3 (May 1956), ill. in b/w, p. 15, as Reverie (Portrait of Frank Burty Haviland).
Pfannstiel 1956
Pfannstiel, Arthur. Modigliani et son œuvre. Paris: Bibliotèque des Arts, 1956. Monograph, no. 35, as Rêverie (Frank Haviland), dated 1914–15.
Ceroni 1958
Ceroni, Ambrogio. Amedeo Modigliani: Peintre. Milan: Edizioni del milione, 1958. Monograph, no. 33, ill. in b/w, as Frank Haviland (étude), dated c. 1914.
Ceroni 1970
Ceroni, Ambrogio. I dipinti di Modigliani. Milan: Rizzoli Editore, 1970. Monograph, no. 43, pp. 89–90, ill. in b/w, p. 90, as Studio per il "Ritratto di Frank Burty Haviland".
Model
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Record last updated March 23, 2026. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Modigliani Initiative. "Reverie (Study for the Portrait of Frank Burty Haviland), 1914 (ID 28)." In Amedeo Modigliani Digital Catalogue. catalogue.modigliani-initiative.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=28 (accessed on May 11, 2026).