Description
Madam Pompadour is a canvas of 1915 held by the Art Institute of Chicago in the Joseph Winterbotham Collection, under accession number 1938.217. A woman in a wide hat is painted to the chest; the title and the year were written straight onto the canvas by the painter. 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: | Madam Pompadour |
| Other titles: | Madam Pompadour (the title the painter inscribed on the canvas itself) |
| Painter: | Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920) |
| Year of creation: | 1915 |
| Original size (width × height): | 50 × 61 cm |
| Original technique: | oil on canvas |
| Painting style: | expressionism, École de Paris |
| Located: | Art Institute of Chicago – Joseph Winterbotham Collection (inv. 1938.217) |
| Our reproduction: | hand-painted copy, oil on canvas, eight sizes or a custom size |
Madam Pompadour – Amedeo Modigliani
What is on the canvas?
A woman to the chest, turned slightly to the right, in a large dark broad-brimmed hat that shades the face and frames it at the same time. The face is a long oval, the eyes almond-shaped and set high, the nose straight, the mouth small and red. The neck is lengthened in Modigliani’s way. The dress is dark, with a narrow light collar. The ground is divided into two fields. The hat is what the canvas is remembered by: because of it the figure takes up almost the whole width, and the work reads fuller than most portraits of the same years.
Why is it called Madam Pompadour?
The title is not the addition of a later catalogue — it is written on the canvas itself. The Art Institute of Chicago’s record notes the signature “modigliani” at the lower right and, at the lower centre, the inscription and date “Madam/Pompadour/1915”, in the painter’s own hand. So for this work there is none of the uncertainty about the year that one meets so often elsewhere: the year is on the canvas. The name refers to the Marquise de Pompadour, mistress of King Louis XV of France, and is in all likelihood a remark about the sitter and her hat; who the woman was, the museum’s record does not say, and we do not guess. The circle the canvas was made in is the one we now call the École de Paris.
The record of the original, and how the canvas travelled
The original is oil on canvas; the museum measures it 61.1 × 50.2 cm, and our figure of 50 × 61 cm is that rounded to the whole centimetre. The museum also publishes the whole chain of ownership, and it is an unusually long one. The canvas was first bought by the dealer Paul Guillaume, directly from the artist, by 1916; until December 1920 it was with Léopold Zborowski; then with Marthe Lederlin in Paris, who put it up at the Galerie Charpentier on 23 March 1933, where as lot 134 it went to Aram D. Mouradian. By 1934 it was back with Paul Guillaume — the same dealer bought it again after nearly twenty years. On his death it passed to Domenica Guillaume, in 1937 it was consigned to the Valentine Gallery in New York, and on 24 March 1938 the Art Institute of Chicago bought it. The work also has its own Wikidata entry.
The motif among the painter’s works
Both dealers in that story are on our shelf as sitters too: Paul Guillaume and Portrait of Léopold Zborowski. Few canvases show so neatly how tight that circle was — the people who bought the pictures also sat for the same hand. From 1915 the shelf also carries L’Enfant gras and The Red Head; the first of those was once Guillaume’s as well. 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 the hat is the hard part: it is dark but not black, and there are differences inside it that have to be painted, or it turns into a hole in the middle of the canvas. The inscription “Madam Pompadour” we carry over exactly as it stands in the original, because it belongs to the painting and is not a later label. 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 60 × 75 cm. Because the hat takes up much of the width, the canvas carries larger sizes without any sense of emptiness: 70 × 85 cm is a good choice for a main wall. For a smaller room 50 × 60 cm is enough, and that is very nearly the size of the original. 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 Art Institute of Chicago, Joseph Winterbotham Collection, accession number 1938.217.
Is the title really painted on the canvas?
Yes. The museum’s record notes the inscription “Madam/Pompadour/1915” at the lower centre and the signature “modigliani” at the lower right.
How closely does it follow the original’s proportions?
The original measures 50 × 61 cm, and that is exactly the size we list: 50 x 60 cm. The proportions are the original’s, with no deviation.
- Subject: a woman to the chest in a large dark broad-brimmed hat, a lengthened neck, a two-part ground
- Original: 50 × 61 cm, oil on canvas, 1915, Art Institute of Chicago, inv. 1938.217
- Ours: hand-painted oil on canvas, eight sizes or a custom size, with a photograph to approve before dispatch
- Worth knowing: the title and the year are written on the canvas itself, so the date of this work is not in doubt
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.
