Nude Sitting on a Divan (The Beautiful Roman Woman)

Amedeo Modigliani

Contemporary-Art.org
Keywords: NudeSittingDivanBeautifulRomanWoman

Work Overview

Nude Sitting on a Divan (The Beautiful Roman Woman)
NU ASSIS SUR UN DIVAN (LA BELLE ROMAINE)
Artist Amedeo Modigliani
Year 1917
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions  39 3/8 by 25 5/8 in.   100 by 65 cm
Owner Private collection
LOT SOLD. 68,962,500 USD


Nude Sitting on a Divan (The Beautiful Roman Woman) is an oil on canvas painting by Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani depicting a partially draped woman seated with crossed legs against a warm red background. The work was one of a series of nudes painted by Modigliani in 1917 that created a sensation when exhibited in Paris that year. On November 2, 2010, the painting sold at a New York auction for $68.9 million, a record price for an artwork by Modigliani.[2]


The several dozen nudes Modigliani painted between 1916 and 1919 constitute many of his best-known works. Simultaneously abstracted and erotically detailed, they exhibit a formal grace referencing nude figures of the Italian Renaissance while at the same time objectifying their subjects' sexuality; they "exemplify his position between tradition and modernism".[3] The nudes of this period are "displayed boldly, with only the faintest suggestion of setting.... neither demure nor provocative, they are depicted with a degree of objectivity. Yet the uniformly thick, rough application of paint— as if applied by a sculptor's hand— is more concerned with mass and the visceral perception of the female body than with titillation and the re-creation of translucent, tactile flesh".[3]


This series of nudes was commissioned by Modigliani's dealer and friend Leopold Zborowski, who lent the artist use of his apartment, supplied models and painting materials, and paid him between fifteen and twenty francs each day for his work.[4] The paintings from this arrangement were thus different from his previous depictions of friends and lovers in that they were funded by Zborowski either for his own collection, as a favor to his friend, or with an eye to their "commercial potential", rather than originating from the artist's personal circle of acquaintances.[5]


The Paris show of 1917 was Modigliani's only solo exhibition during his life, and is "notorious" in modern art history for its sensational public reception and the attendant issues of obscenity.[6] The show was closed by police on its opening day, but continued thereafter, most likely after the removal of paintings from the gallery's streetfront window.[6]


According to the catalogue description from the 2010 sale at Sotheby's, seven nudes were exhibited in the 1917 show, four of them titled Nu; "the present work may have been among these pictures.... the models' permissiveness and the artist's accessibility to them implied that these oils were post coital-renderings, the women still flush and basking in the afterglow".[1]


In 1999 Nude Sitting on a Divan sold at Sotheby's for $16.7 million, a record price for a painting by the artist.[7] The most recent sale far surpassed the pre-sale estimate of $40 million, as well as the previous record for one of Modigliani's works, $52.6 million for a sculpture.


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Nu assis sur un divan (La Belle Romaine) exemplifies Modigliani's conquest of the nude, a subject that is considered his greatest accomplishment in painting.  Continuing the tradition of Botticelli's Venus, Velazquez's Rokeby Venus, Ingres' Baigneuse turque and Manet's Olympia, it ranks among the definitive nudes in the history of Western art.  
Few pictures explore the pleasures of the flesh with such candor, intimacy and immediate appeal.   Modigliani believed that "to paint a woman is to possess her."    Indeed, her availability to engage with us is undeniable, with her rosy thigh projecting into the foreground.  The tilt of her head, piled with lustrous black hair, the strained exposure of the neck, the arch of her brow and the glint in her eyes all accentuate the full complicitness of this woman in the art of seduction.  Captivating the imagination with her sensual appeal, La Belle Romaine is nothing less than a goddess of the modern era.
La Belle Romaine belongs to Modigliani's most important series of nudes, all painted in 1917 (figs. 2, 3, 4 & 6), that created a sensation when they made their début in Paris.  Seven of the nudes from this series were exhibited that year at the Galerie Berthe Weill, four of them catalogued simply as Nu.  The present work may have been among these pictures.  The explicit paintings that hung in the gallery window caused a commotion on opening day, attracting a crowd of passers-by and the attention of the local police precinct who temporarily shut down the exhibition.  What was so shocking was the fact that these nudes were contemporary women, decontextualized from any allegorical or historical narrative.   Furthermore, the models' permissiveness and the artist's accessibility to them implied that these oils were post-coital renderings, the women still flush and basking in the afterglow.  
Contemporary accounts tell of how Modigliani insisted on privacy when he held sessions with his models.  Supposedly, he was once interrupted by his dealer Zborowski and immediately flew into a fit of anger, throwing out his model and threatening to destroy the canvas.  It is important to remember that Modigliani's nudes were a finanicially-incentivized endeavour, commissioned by Zborowski for future sales.  Furthermore, painting nudes required hiring models, and Modigliani depended on his dealer to cover this expense.   During the months that he worked on these pictures, the artist set up his studio in Zborowski's apartment on the rue Joseph Bara, and was very much dependent on the dealer's financial support.  It is most likely the case that the present work was sold by Zborowski to the renowned collector Dr. Raymond-Jacques Sabouraud not long after Modigliani completed it. 
Modigliani began painting nudes in 1908, generally in the forms of caryatids, but it was only after he abandoned sculpture in 1914 that he developed the unique idiom evident in the present painting.  His was an aesthetic gleaned from the artistic precedents of Italian Renaissance and Mannerist painting, the linear simplicity of African tribal carvings and the earth-toned palette and geometric modeling of Cubism.  All of these influences can all be identified in La Belle Romaine.   For example, the provocative pose of the model here recalls the curvacious anatomy of Titian's Venus of Urbino (fig. 9), and the elegant sway of the figure's body can also be likened to the swooning Madonnas of the early Renaissance.  The dramatically contoured and foreshortened pose of La Belle Romaine has a distinctly three-dimensional appeal that is indebted to the artist's own experience with stone-carving and his appreciation for sculpture.  Matisse's bronze Figure decorative (fig. 7), completed in 1908 and which Modigliani may have seen in Paris, comes to mind as a possible inspiration.  Another contemporary influence may have been Picasso's Rose-period depictions of monumental female nudes, particularly the seated figure from 1906 (fig. 10).  The physical gravitas of the present picture is comparable to that of Picasso's painting, but Modigliani presents the strength and power of the female body as a more explicitly sexual force.
The sensual allure of La Belle Romaine is reflected in its palette and the pose of the model.  The amber and rose-colored tones evoke the radiant warmth of the figure's flesh and the intimate atmosphere in which the artist painted his picture.   Seated on a cushioned surface and draped in a sheet, the model tantalizes us with a coy attempt at shielding her nudity.  To heighten the erotic anticipation of the scene, she draws attention to her obscured genitals with an arm that touches both her breast and the top of her raised thigh.  Her legs extend beyong the edge of the canvas and her lower torso is the center of mass in the foreground, confronting the viewer with its uncompromising proximity.   
Carol Mann discusses the strategic modeling of Modigliani's nude, and how the woman's bodily positioning guides the eye around her voluptuous contours: "When she is not parallel to the picture plane, the legs and elbows always point earthwards -- basic reassurance, Venus naturalis.  The sensuous line leads the spectator's eye slowly round the woman, and the rhythm of the brushwork gathers momentum in the area surrounding the pelvis....In some of the seated and standing nudes, the antique Venus pudica cliché is used convincingly: the models conceal their sex with a convenient piece of draperly, or better still with their hand, thereby only making it more obvious." (C. Mann, op. cit., pp. 143-44).
Emily Braun has written about the appeal of Modigliani's nudes and explains why they are so irresistible: "The most startling aspect of a Modigliani nude, what makes it immediately identifiable, is the way in which the female body is literally in your face.  A more delicate way of putting it is not possible, nor would it do justice to the manner in which the bodies languish parallel to the picture plane and then sprawl into the foreground....The women's bodies flow expansively beyond the edge, as if to emphasise that the bounded plane of the canvas cannot adequately encompass the swell and stretch of line and muscle.  Modigliani's compositional strategies draw attention to the physicality of the human form and to a female sexuality that exceeds the 'normal' confinement of the nude in painting.  Although his canvases are only average size these images often take up the entire room.  Long before Helmut Newton, Amedeo Modigliani did big nudes, big in presence, sexuality and historical ambition" (E. Braun, "Carnal Knowledge," in Modigliani and His Models (exhibition catalogue), Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2006, p. 45).


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Classic images from art history, a doe-eyed female nude by Modigliani and a seminal Monet waterlily attracted bidders from around the world on Tuesday night at Sotheby’s sale of Impressionist and modern art.


It was the start of the fall auction season, and despite the mixed bag of works on offer — many were familiar, mediocre or both — international collectors, some from countries by now famous for new money, kept prices at healthy levels.


“It’s designer brands for new buyers,” said Rory Howard, a private art dealer from London, referring to the appeal of big names. “Art as fashion.”


Few seemed to care that many of the paintings had been on the auction market in recent years, some of them more than once. The evening’s star, for example, Modigliani’s 1917 portrait “Nude Sitting on a Divan (The Beautiful Roman Woman),” was sold at Sotheby’s in 1999, when it brought $16.7 million, an auction record for the artist at the time. On Tuesday night, history repeated itself, as Sotheby’s representatives from Hong Kong, Paris, Geneva, Tokyo, Moscow and New York competed tenaciously for the painting.


Roberta Louckx, a Sotheby’s representative based in New York and known to work with Russians, was the winner for her client, who is paying $68.9 million, including Sotheby’s fees. That was well above the $40 million estimate and eclipsed the previous auction record for the artist, which was set in June at Christie’s in Paris when a limestone head by Modigliani sold for $52.6 million.


Putting the Modigliani early in the evening helped bolster buyers’ confidence, and all told, Sotheby’s managed to sell 46 of its 61 works in a sale that totaled $227.5 million, in the middle of its estimate of $195 million to $266 million.


Given the shaky economy, the auction house was cautious going into the sale. The Modigliani and a 1942 Matisse had been presold. Sotheby’s had arranged what it calls irrevocable bids for both works, meaning that buyers had already agreed to purchase the art for undisclosed sums. If someone else wanted to pay more, the original bidder would get a percentage of the profit.


The $68.9 million paid at a Sotheby’s auction for Modigliani’s “Nude Sitting on a Divan (The Beautiful Roman Woman)” on Tuesday set a record for a work by the artist. Credit Sotheby’s
As there were with the Modigliani, there were many takers for the Matisse, “Dancer in an Armchair With a Checkered Floor,” despite its irrevocable bid. That painting, which depicts Carla Avogardo, a dancer friend of the artist, in a bright yellow chair against a background of black and white checks, had been estimated at $12 million to $18 million but ended up selling for $18.5 million, or $20.8 million with fees. The buyer was Mark Politmore, deputy chairman of Sotheby’s Europe and the Middle East.


The Matisse had been on the market at Sotheby’s twice since 2000, once bringing $7.4 million and the last time, in London in 2007, $21.7 million.


A Matisse bronze of two embracing naked figures conceived in 1907 and cast around 1930 fared less well, selling to Alan Hobart, a London dealer, for $7.5 million, or $8.4 million with fees, just above its $8 million low estimate. The same sculpture had last been sold at Christie’s in 2001 for $7.5 million.


(Final prices include the buyer’s commission to Sotheby’s: 25 percent of the first $50,000; 20 percent of the next $50,000 to $1 million; and 12 percent of the rest. Estimates do not reflect commissions.)


Ted Arison, the founder of Carnival Cruise Lines, and his wife, Lin, bought the Monet waterlily paintings at Sotheby’s sale of art from the Reader’s Digest Collection in 1998, a year before Mr. Arison died. On Tuesday night Ms. Arison sold the work, which was painted from 1917 to 1919, for $25.7 million, well within the estimate of $20 million to $30 million, but more than twice the $9.9 million that the Arisons had paid. The proceeds will benefit YoungArts, a program of the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts in Miami, which supports emerging artists.


Ms. Arison was also selling another Modigliani portrait from 1917, “Jeanne Hébuterne Wearing a Hat,” which depicts the artist’s mistress and muse. The couple bought it at a Sotheby’s auction in 1996 for $3.5 million. This time it was estimated at $9 million to $12 million, but four telephone bidders went for the painting and it ended up selling for $19.1 million. Proceeds from that work are also going to YoungArts.


Late Picassos have been all the rage in recent years, but not on Tuesday night. Of the two on offer, “Man and Woman With a Bouquet,” from 1970, failed to get a single bid, and “Man With a Flag,” from 1969, which had been estimated to bring $5 million to $7 million, sold to a telephone bidder for $4.7 million, or $5.3 million with fees.


“It’s a sensible market,” Nicholas Maclean, a private dealer, said after the sale. “Things that were average or overpriced didn’t do well.”


As for the Modigliani nude, Mr. Maclean explained: “The timing was perfect. Few Modliglianis have come on the market. It’s what collectors have been looking for.”


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The family, recently flung into financial crisis, rushed to pile their most valuable belongings around her on the bed. They wanted to take advantage of a law decreeing that creditors couldn't touch the bed of a pregnant woman. Modigliani's life proved to be no less dramatic than his birth.


In many ways, Modigliani followed the stereotype of an impoverished, tortured artist. He claimed to want to live “a short intense life”. In this, he succeeded.


At 16, Modigliani contracted tuberculosis. When he moved to Paris a few years later he set about recreating himself, destroying much of his early work, describing it as “childish baubles”.


He started drinking heavily and taking drugs, probably in an attempt to self-medicate and to try and hide his tuberculosis, a then untreatable condition whose sufferers were shunned. His drug and alcohol use gradually became an addiction.


Modigliani had one solo exhibition in his lifetime, at the Berthe Weill Gallery, Paris, 1917. However, the exhibition caused an outcry. Crowds gathered in front of the gallery windows and, amidst accusations of indecency, the police demanded the exhibition was closed. It was allowed to reopen, but only after removing the offending paintings from public view.


Nude Sitting on a Divan, or La Belle Romain, The Beautiful Roman Woman, was one of the paintings exhibited. It shows the influence of both the Italian Renaissance and the modern art movements of the time. The painting, oil on canvas, portrays a nude woman against a deep red background, a scrap of fabric partially draped across her body. The figure is bold and unashamed, gazing sensually, but not provocatively, from the frame.


In 1920, neighbours found the 35 years old Modigliani feverish, clinging to his heavily pregnant partner, Jeanne Hébuterne. He was in the grips of tubercular meningitis and later died in hospital, destitute. The day after his funeral, distraught from his death, Hébuterne jumped from a high window, killing both herself and their unborn baby. Left behind was their young daughter, Jeanne.


In 2010, 90 years after Modigliani died in poverty, Nude Sitting on a Divan sold for $68.9 million at a New York auction.