Description
Madame G. van Muyden is a large canvas held by the São Paulo Museum of Art under inventory number MASP.00148 and dated 1916–17. The sitter is upright in a dark dress, 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: | Madame G. van Muyden |
| Other titles: | Madame G. van Muyden (the only title MASP’s record gives) |
| Painter: | Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920) |
| Year of creation: | 1916–17 |
| Original size (width × height): | 65 × 92 cm |
| Original technique: | oil on canvas |
| Painting style: | expressionism, École de Paris |
| Located: | São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP) (inv. MASP.00148) |
| Our reproduction: | hand-painted copy, oil on canvas, eight sizes or a custom size |
Madame G. van Muyden – Amedeo Modigliani
What is on the canvas?
A female figure, seated and given down to the knees, which in Modigliani is rarer than the half-length portrait. The pose is upright and quiet, the shoulders squared, the hands folded in the lap. The face is a long oval, the chin narrow, the nose straight; the eyes almond-shaped, the brows thin and set high. The neck is lengthened, though less than on the later canvases. The dress is dark and long, without ornament; the collar closed. The ground is divided into two fields, lighter at the left and darker at the right, with no objects in it. Because of the large format and the still pose this is one of the most formal canvases on the shelf.
Who was Madame van Muyden?
The museum’s record gives only the surname and an initial — Madame G. van Muyden — and nothing further. Who she was the catalogue does not explain, and so we attribute nothing to her. The name is Dutch or Flemish, and the Paris circle of those years, the one we now call the École de Paris, held people from all over Europe; more than that would be guesswork. What is known is the time: the canvas was made in 1916 and 1917, when Modigliani was painting mostly people from his own neighbourhood and from his dealer’s circle.
The record of the original, and how it reached São Paulo
The original is oil on canvas. MASP measures it 92 × 65 × 2 cm — height, width and the depth of the stretcher — and dates it 1916–17, that is as a two-year range and not as a single year; we give it the same way. Our figure of 65 × 92 cm is the museum’s. How the canvas reached Brazil is in the record too: as a gift of Tor Janer in 1951. That is the whole documented route, and we go no further. The work also has its own Wikidata entry.
The motif among the painter’s works
MASP holds six paintings by Modigliani, all made between 1915 and 1919, and all of them entered the collection between 1950 and 1952 — the museum says so itself. Four of them are on our shelf: beside this one, Renée, Portrait of Léopold Zborowski and Madame Hanka Zborowska. Their inventory numbers are neighbours, MASP.00148 to 00152. Of these the van Muyden is the largest and the most reserved; if you want a Modigliani that does not raise its voice, this is the one. 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 dress is the hard part: it is dark and almost without detail, but it is not flat — there are fine differences between a warm and a cold black inside it, and left out, the figure turns into a silhouette. 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 original is large and the figure nearly life-size, so the canvas carries a main wall better than the smaller portraits on this shelf. For a smaller room 60 × 90 cm is enough. Below 50 × 70 cm we advise against it, because the folded hands then merge into the dress and the pose is lost, and the pose is the main thing in this work. 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 São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP), inventory number MASP.00148, a gift of Tor Janer in 1951.
Why do you give two years?
Because the museum gives two: 1916–17. We do not compress a range into a single year, because the record does not carry that precision.
How closely does it follow the original’s proportions?
The original measures 65 × 92 cm. The closest of our sizes is 120 x 170 cm, which departs from the original’s proportions by 0.09%.
- Subject: a seated woman given to the knees, a long dark dress, hands folded in the lap, a two-part ground
- Original: 65 × 92 cm, oil on canvas, 1916–17, São Paulo Museum of Art, inv. MASP.00148
- Ours: hand-painted oil on canvas, eight sizes or a custom size, with a photograph to approve before dispatch
- Worth knowing: who Madame van Muyden was, the museum’s record does not say — it gives only a surname and an initial
The eyes on this canvas do have pupils. Of the 76 Modigliani works on this shelf 17 are like that, and 53 have no pupils – work by work.
