Description
The Portrait of Moïse Kisling is a small, densely painted canvas of 1915, held by the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan under inventory number 5037. Modigliani painted his friend and Montparnasse neighbour, the Polish painter Moïse Kisling, and wrote his name in large letters straight into the top edge of the canvas. 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: | Portrait of Moïse Kisling |
| Other titles: | Portrait of the Painter Moïse Kisling (the title in Brera’s own record) |
| Painter: | Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920) |
| Year of creation: | 1915 |
| Original size (width × height): | 29 × 37 cm |
| Original technique: | oil on canvas |
| Painting style: | expressionism, École de Paris |
| Located: | Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan (inv. 5037) |
| Our reproduction: | hand-painted copy, oil on canvas, eight sizes or a custom size |
Portrait of Moïse Kisling – Amedeo Modigliani
What is on the canvas?
Head and shoulders, cropped close. The thick black hair is cut in a straight line above the forehead, the brows are strong and dark, the eyes almond-shaped, the sitter’s left a little wider than the right. The nose is long and straight, the mouth small and red, with a dark notch beneath it. The flesh tone is laid in salmon pink over an olive underpainting that breaks through in places. A white collar and a dark bow appear at the lower edge. The ground is a warm brown-burgundy. Along the top edge run the letters KISLING, painted directly into the colour — the painter signed his sitter instead of himself.
Who was Moïse Kisling?
Moïse Kisling was a Polish painter of Jewish origin who came to Paris in 1910 and settled in Montparnasse; Brera’s own record calls him an intimate friend of Modigliani. They shared a studio and the circle we now call the École de Paris. Kisling was among the few who supported Modigliani in the years when he sold almost nothing. His wife Renée was painted separately, and we carry that canvas as Madame Kisling. The portrait was made in 1915, in the period when Modigliani, after his years of carving, had returned to painting for good.
The record of the original, and how the canvas travelled
The original is oil on canvas and measures 29 × 37 cm; the year 1915 and the inventory number 5037 are recorded at Brera. The museum’s record also says who owned the canvas. It belonged first to Paul Guillaume, the critic and dealer who was at the outset Modigliani’s only collector — his portrait is on this shelf too, Paul Guillaume. It reached Italy after the great success of the artist’s retrospective at the 1930 Venice Biennale, when the Milanese gallery Il Milione acquired it. It entered Emilio Jesi’s collection immediately after the war, and most of Brera’s Modiglianis come from that collection. The full record is public in the Pinacoteca di Brera catalogue, and the work also has its own Wikidata entry.
The motif among the painter’s works
In 1915 and 1916 Modigliani painted a run of portraits of the painters in his neighbourhood; taken together they amount to a group portrait of a single street. Beside Kisling our shelf carries the Portrait of Chaïm Soutine and the Portrait of Juan Gris, both from the same circle. Kisling’s is the most compact of them: no lengthened neck, no ornament, only a face looking straight out at you. 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. The layers go on in the order the original has them: the olive underpainting first, then the salmon flesh tone, and the name last. 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 × 90 cm. At 29 × 37 cm the original is unusually small, which is exactly why the portrait gains in a larger format: the head is built from a few firm planes and carries enlargement without loss. For a narrow hallway or the wall beside a door, 40 × 60 cm is enough; for the main living-room wall 80 × 120 cm stays a quiet choice, because the motif itself is very still. 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 Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, inventory number 5037. It is not on permanent display every day; the museum arranges the Jesi collection to its own plan.
Which size should I choose?
For a bedroom or hallway 40 × 60 cm; for a living-room wall 60 × 90 cm or 80 × 120 cm.
Can I have a size that is not listed?
Yes. Send us the width and the height in centimetres; we explain first how the size changes the crop of the head and shoulders.
How closely does it follow the original’s proportions?
The original measures 29 × 37 cm. The closest of our sizes is 70 x 90 cm, which departs from the original’s proportions by 0.77%.
- Subject: head and shoulders of the Polish painter Moïse Kisling, black hair cut in a straight line, white collar, the word KISLING along the top edge
- Original: 29 × 37 cm, oil on canvas, 1915, Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, inv. 5037
- Ours: hand-painted oil on canvas, eight sizes or a custom size, with a photograph to approve before dispatch
- Worth knowing: the canvas belonged to Paul Guillaume, reached Italy after the 1930 Biennale, and came to Brera with Emilio Jesi’s collection
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.
