Description
Amedeo Modigliani – Portrait of Léopold Survage (1918), hand-painted oil reproduction
Portrait of Léopold Survage is a canvas of 1918 held by the Finnish National Gallery, the Ateneum, in Helsinki. The sitter is the painter Léopold Survage, whom Modigliani met in Nice and painted several times that winter. We make it as a hand-painted oil on canvas, to order; among our reproductions of famous paintings it is one of the few male portraits on the Modigliani shelf.
What is on the canvas
Head and shoulders. Dark brown hair is combed back off a high forehead, and the eyes are a pale blue – with pupils, which is not a given in Modigliani. A short dark moustache sits under the nose. The face is long and ochre, built from soft vertical strokes. Below are a dark suit, a white collar and a dark tie. The ground is a warm ochre-grey laid in short strokes that stay visible. The signature is upper right.
A winter in Nice
In 1918 the war and his own failing health took Modigliani to the south of France. He spent a little over a year in and around Nice, and the portraits made there are among his quietest: earthier colour, more economical handling, backgrounds that are often no more than a wall. Léopold Survage, a Russian-French painter, was one of his regular companions at the time. This portrait comes out of exactly that circle – two painters sitting for each other.
The record of the original
The original is oil on canvas and measures 46 x 62 cm; it is held by the Finnish National Gallery (Ateneum) in Helsinki under inventory number A IV 2971. The year 1918 is recorded to year precision, so we print it; where a record is precise only to a decade we print no year. The measurements were read together with their unit. The proportions of our own file agree with the record to within 0.2 per cent, which confirms it.
What you receive
The painting is made for you by hand, oil on canvas, to order, in the size you choose, including custom sizes. The colour range is restrained, so this motif does well in a room that already has plenty of colour: it works as a still point rather than a competitor. The work takes some weeks and every copy differs slightly; that is the consequence of a person painting it rather than a machine, not a defect. We send you a photograph of the finished canvas before it ships. Our 3D application lets you choose a frame and renders that frame realistically on screen; separately, our visualization service places the picture on your own wall before you buy. These are reproductions on canvas and never prints.
| Year of creation: | 1918 |
| Original size (width × height): | 46 x 62 cm |
| Painting style: | Expressionism |
| Original technique: | Oil on canvas |
| Located: | Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum, Helsinki (inv. A IV 2971) |
Modigliani’s portraits of men are rarer than those of women, and different in kind: less stylised, closer to the individual. Survage looks straight out at you, and that is what gives the picture its calm, almost everyday presence.
