Description
Girl with a Polka-Dot Blouse – a hand-painted Modigliani reproduction
Girl with a Polka-Dot Blouse is a late portrait of 1919, and as a fine art reproduction it works because it has something Modigliani’s faces usually do not: a pattern. The white blouse is scattered with blue dots and tied at the throat with a large soft bow. The original belongs to the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia and hangs in Room 11 of the collection galleries.
What is on the canvas
The young woman is shown at three-quarter length, set square to the viewer. Auburn hair is parted at the centre and drawn back. The face is a long oval described by a single decisive line, and the eyes are blue and carry an iris — Modigliani often leaves them blank, but here there is a gaze. The mouth is small and red. The white blouse is sprinkled with small blue dots, a pale blue bow sits under the throat and the sleeves narrow at the wrists. The lower half is taken by a full mauve-pink skirt, with both hands folded low in the lap. The ground is grey-green, a vertical band runs down the left edge, and the back of a wooden chair shows at the right. The signature modigliani stands at the upper right.
A pattern Modigliani almost never painted
Modigliani’s canvases are usually smooth: one colour for the dress, one for the wall, no ornament anywhere. This one is different. The dots on the blouse are set down one at a time and give the picture a rhythm rarely seen in his work, while the bow is the only place where the paint opens into a soft fold. That pattern is what gave the work its name — the museum also lists it under the French title Jeune fille au corsage à pois. It was painted in 1919, the last full year of the painter’s life, when the faces are at their calmest and the line at its most certain.
The record of the original
The original is oil on canvas. The museum measures it 115.6 cm high and 73 cm wide; we give width first, so on our page it reads 73 x 115.6 cm. The figures come from the Barnes Foundation’s own record: the year 1919, the medium oil on canvas, the accession number BF180. The museum also publishes the ownership history: possibly Léopold Zborowski in Paris by 1923, and then purchased by Albert C. Barnes from the dealer Paul Guillaume in June 1923. The museum hedges that first step and so do we. The canvas left Europe in 1923. Our reproductions on canvas follow the proportion of the original rather than its size.
What you receive
We paint the picture by hand in oil on canvas, to order, in the size you choose, including a bespoke size. The motif is light and upright, so it suits a narrow alcove, a space beside a door or the wall between two windows, where a broad picture has no room. Before dispatch we send you a photograph of the finished canvas. It is a hand-painted reproduction, never a print.
| Year of creation: | 1919 |
| Original size (width × height): | 73 x 115.6 cm |
| Painting style: | Expressionism |
| Original technique: | Oil on canvas |
| Located: | The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia (inv. BF180) |
Modigliani knew how to reduce a face to a mask. Here he did the opposite: he left the girl her gaze, and gave her a blouse he had to paint one dot at a time.
