Description
Jeanne Hébuterne in a Yellow Sweater is a canvas of Modigliani’s last years, held by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York under inventory number 37.533. The sitter is the painter’s partner, Jeanne Hébuterne; she sits in a mustard-yellow sweater and a dark blue skirt, her hands folded in her lap. With us it is made as a hand-painted copy, oil on canvas, to order, in eight sizes or in a size you give us; before dispatch we send you a photograph of the finished canvas.
| Title: | Jeanne Hébuterne in a Yellow Sweater |
| Other titles: | Jeanne Hébuterne with Yellow Sweater (the title in the Guggenheim’s own record) |
| Painter: | Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920) |
| Year of creation: | 1918–1919 (per the Guggenheim’s record) |
| Original size (width × height): | 65 × 100 cm |
| Original technique: | oil on canvas |
| Painting style: | expressionism, École de Paris |
| Located: | Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (inv. 37.533) |
| Our reproduction: | hand-painted copy, oil on canvas, eight sizes or a custom size |
Jeanne Hébuterne in a Yellow Sweater – Amedeo Modigliani
What is on the canvas?
The figure is seated and shown three-quarters on. The sweater is mustard yellow, long-sleeved, falling loosely over the shoulders; below it a dark blue skirt. The hair is chestnut, pinned up above the long neck, lengthened in Modigliani’s way. The face is a pale oval, the eyes two blue almonds. The ground is a blue-grey wall; at the right the red-brown back of a chair appears. The signature is at the upper right. The yellow sweater carries the whole canvas: it is the only strong colour on it, and everything else is tuned to it.
Who was Jeanne Hébuterne?
Jeanne Hébuterne was a painter and Modigliani’s partner in the last years of his life. He painted her more than twenty times — far more often than anyone else — and it is these portraits by which his late manner is most recognisable: the long neck, the tilted head, a face brought down to a few strokes. She belonged to the circle of the École de Paris herself, and was not merely its model. Our shelf carries Jeanne in several versions, among them Jeanne Hébuterne in a White Chemise, Jeanne Seated with Her Arm on the Chair Back and Portrait of Jeanne Hébuterne I; this one differs from them in its colour.
The year we did not give before
⚠️ This paragraph is a correction and we write it plainly. This page previously carried a whole section on why we gave no year for this work: the record we had then dated it only to a decade, and a decade is not a year. That was true of that record — it was not true of the museum. The Guggenheim’s own record dates the canvas 1918–19 and measures it 100 × 64.7 cm, oil on canvas, inventory number 37.533; the museum titles it Jeanne Hébuterne with Yellow Sweater. The institution that holds the work outranks every other record, so we now print its range. Our figure of 65 × 100 cm is the museum’s, rounded to the whole centimetre. The work also has its own Wikidata entry, which remains less precise about the date; that difference is exactly what the earlier caution was about.
The motif among the painter’s works
Modigliani painted Jeanne in quick succession and almost always seated, so that the portraits differ by one decision at a time: the colour of the clothing, the tilt of the head, where the look goes. Here the decision is colour. The yellow sweater is the only saturated area on the canvas, and because it is set against a blue-grey wall and a dark blue skirt, the whole picture comes down to a single pair of colours. For a comparison with another sitter of the same years, the shelf carries The Italian Woman. The whole selection is in the Amedeo Modigliani gallery, and we have written a longer article about the painter.
How is our hand-painted version made?
A painter paints it, with a brush, in oil on canvas, to your order. Every canvas painting takes some weeks, and each copy comes out slightly its own; that is not a fault but the consequence of a person working rather than a machine. On this motif everything hangs on the yellow: too orange and the canvas turns hot and loses its calm, too lemon and it lifts away from the wall behind it. The yellow is therefore mixed beside the already painted ground and not on its own. Before dispatch you receive a photograph of the finished canvas and approve it. It is never a print.
Which size for which wall?
For this motif we suggest 70 × 100 cm, the size closest to the original. The canvas is large and upright; the yellow area, on the other hand, is broad enough that in a small format it reads as a blot, so below 50 × 70 cm we advise against it. For a main living-room wall 80 × 120 cm still stays quiet, because the colour story is so simple. If you want a post-impressionist painting in a size that is not on the list, we make it to order.
Frequently asked questions
Where is the original?
In the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, inventory number 37.533.
Which size should I choose?
For a main wall 70 × 100 cm or 80 × 120 cm; for a smaller room 60 × 90 cm.
How closely does it follow the original’s proportions?
The original measures 65 × 100 cm, and that is exactly the size we list: 65 x 100 cm. The proportions are the original’s, with no deviation.
- Subject: Jeanne Hébuterne seated in a mustard-yellow sweater and dark blue skirt, hands folded in her lap
- Original: 65 × 100 cm, oil on canvas, 1918–19, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, inv. 37.533
- Ours: hand-painted oil on canvas, eight sizes or a custom size, with a photograph to approve before dispatch
- Worth knowing: we gave no year before; the museum’s record gives it as the range 1918–19, so we now print it
The eyes on this canvas are painted without pupils. We counted all 76 Modigliani works on this shelf: 53 are like that, 17 are not – work by work.
