Amedeo Modigliani – Reclining Nude II

Amedeo Modigliani - Reclining Nude II

Reclining Nude II is an oil on canvas painted by Amedeo Modigliani in 1917; the original measures 60.6 × 92.7 cm and hangs in The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York under accession number 1997.149.9. Our canvas painting is a hand-painted copy of that work: an academy-trained painter makes it in oil on cotton canvas, in eight sizes from 60 × 40 cm to 180 × 120 cm or in the size you specify, and before dispatch we photograph it and send you the photograph for approval.

Reclining Nude II – Amedeo Modigliani

What is on the canvas?

The canvas is landscape. A woman lies on her back with her head at the left, turned towards us, both arms raised and folded behind her head so that the head rests on the nearer arm. The hair is dark, parted and swept back, falling behind the shoulder; a pale blue-white pillow shows behind the head. The eyes are flat dark almonds with no pupil drawn in them, the lids lowered; the mouth is small and dark red with a thin line of light between the lips, and the cheeks carry a warm pink. The body is pale and warm and runs across the full width of the canvas, the hip and thigh continuing to the right edge, where the legs are cut off. Under the figure is a red-orange drape whose brushwork stays visible in loose curling strokes at the lower left; behind it a darker red-brown band crosses the upper right, and the top right corner turns grey-brown. Two colours carry everything: the warm skin and the red beneath it. It is a post-impressionist painting in the sense in which post-impressionism meant building a body out of contour and colour rather than describing the light on it. In Paris Modigliani belonged to that circle of immigrant painters we now call the École de Paris.

Where is the original today?

In The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, under accession number 1997.149.9, in the department of Modern and Contemporary Art. The museum’s own record gives 1917, oil on canvas, 23 7/8 × 36 1/2 inches, which is 60.6 × 92.7 cm, and the credit line “The Mr. and Mrs. Klaus G. Perls Collection, 1997”. At the museum the work is called simply Reclining Nude; we carry the II because we sell more than one of his reclining nudes and the numbers keep them apart. It is catalogued as number 199 in the 1970 catalogue raisonné, and the recorded owners before the museum run from Léopold Zborowski in Paris in the early 1920s to Georges Menier, also in Paris, and then to the Perls collection. A structured summary of the same record is at Wikidata. The line still repeated in some places, that the picture is in a private collection, has been out of date for three decades.

What does the photograph on this page show?

The first photograph shows our own hand-painted canvas, not the original: the finished work standing on a wooden easel in our framing workshop, set in a dark red-brown moulding with a thin gold line on the inner edge, with racks of moulding samples and other framed works behind it. The frame in the photograph is one of many and it is not included by default; you choose it yourself, and you can see it on the work before you decide.

Which reclining nude is this?

This is the one in New York, 1917, 60.6 × 92.7 cm, with the arms folded behind the head and a pale pillow at the left. It is not the Reclining Nude III in Zurich, where the right arm is bent above the head and the bedding is ochre with red stripes, and it is not the Reclining Nude we list under its French title. We say this plainly because the sizes and collections of these three have been mixed up before, including on our own pages: a measurement that belonged here once stood on the page for the Zurich canvas, and we removed it when we found out.

The nudes of 1917 and the exhibition the police closed

Modigliani painted the reclining nudes in 1916 and 1917, while the dealer Léopold Zborowski was paying his rent and buying his materials. In December 1917 the gallerist Berthe Weill opened the only solo exhibition of his lifetime, in her rooms in the rue Taitbout; the police closed it on the first day because the nudes were visible from the street. He died in January 1920, aged thirty-five. The series runs to about two dozen canvases, painted from professional models, and it is the part of his work that sells at the highest prices today and hangs in the largest number of public collections.

How is our hand-painted version made?

The work is made by an academy-trained painter in oil on cotton canvas over a wooden frame. It is not a print: every stroke is laid by hand, and your canvas always differs a little from any other. With this subject everything rests on one relation, the warm skin against the red beneath it. If the red goes too dark or too cold the skin stops glowing and the work loses its light; if it goes too orange the body turns grey by comparison. The painter therefore lays the drape first and matches the flesh to it, not the other way round. The contour of the body is a single unbroken line and is drawn before any colour goes down. When the paint is dry we photograph the work and send the photograph for approval.

Which size for which wall?

The original is 92.7 cm wide and 60.6 cm high. Our 93 × 61 cm is the same picture to within three millimetres, so if you want it at the size Modigliani painted it, that is the rung. The smaller sizes, 60 × 40, 70 × 45 and 80 × 50 cm, suit a narrow wall, a hall or the space above a low sideboard. Above a bed or a sofa, which is the natural place for a landscape format, 100 × 70 and 120 × 80 cm read best. The large sizes, 150 × 100 and 180 × 120 cm, want a free wall and at least three metres of distance. The work is warm and closed and carries a coloured wall well, but it is at its best with some emptiness at either side.

Custom size, stretcher and frame

If your wall asks for a size that is not listed, we will make it. Give us the width and height in centimetres; we check whether the proportion carries the composition and tell you what changes at the edges. Here it shows first at the right, where the legs are already cut in the original, and at the left, where the pillow and the raised elbow sit; narrowing there takes length out of the figure, which is the whole subject. It arrives either stretched on a wooden frame, ready to hang, or rolled in a tube, which is cheaper to ship. You pick the frame in our 3D application, which shows it realistically on the work, and on request we set it into a photograph of your wall. If you are looking for a work we do not carry, see our made-to-order paintings.

Delivery and guarantee

We deliver to your address, the canvas clear of the outer wall of the packaging. Lead time depends on size and the workshop load: we estimate it when you order and tell you if it changes. We guarantee workmanship and materials: if the work arrives damaged or does not match the photograph you approved, we repaint it at our cost. Because you see it photographed before it ships, most questions are settled before it leaves.

Frequently asked questions

Where is the original?

In The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

What is the accession number?

1997.149.9, in the department of Modern and Contemporary Art.

How did it reach the museum?

Through the collection of Klaus G. Perls and his wife, whose credit line the museum records against the year 1997.

Is this a print?

No. Every canvas is painted by hand, in oil. We print nothing.

Do you have the original’s size?

Effectively yes. The original is 92.7 × 60.6 cm and our 93 × 61 cm rung differs from it by three millimetres in each direction.

Which size should I choose?

Above a bed or sofa, 120 × 80 or 150 × 100 cm. For a narrower wall, 80 × 50 cm.

Can I have a size that is not on the list?

Yes. Give us the width and height in centimetres; we explain first how the size affects the crop.

How does it arrive?

Stretched on a wooden frame ready to hang, or rolled in a tube. Both travel in protective packaging.

How high should it hang?

With its centre about 145 cm above the floor, and a little lower above a bed, so a hand’s width is left between the headboard and the lower edge.

Does the photograph show the original?

No. It shows our own hand-painted canvas, photographed on an easel in our workshop.

Which other Modigliani nudes do you have?

See Red Nude, Nude with Loose Hair and Nude Sitting on a Divan. The full choice is in the Amedeo Modigliani gallery, and we have written a longer article about the painter.

• Subject: a reclining female figure, head at the left, both arms folded behind the head, a pale pillow behind her and a red-orange drape beneath
• Original: 60.6 × 92.7 cm, oil on canvas, 1917, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (acc. 1997.149.9)
• Our version: hand-painted oil on canvas, eight sizes from 60 × 40 to 180 × 120 cm, one of them the original’s measurement to within three millimetres
• Worth knowing: the museum calls it simply Reclining Nude; the II is ours, and it exists to keep three similar canvases apart