Description
The Boy is a canvas held by the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields under accession number 46.22 and dated 1918. A young man sits in dark working clothes, his hands folded, his face long and quiet. 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: | The Boy |
| Other titles: | The Boy (the title in the Indianapolis museum’s record) |
| Painter: | Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920) |
| Year of creation: | 1918 |
| Original size (width × height): | 60 × 92 cm |
| Original technique: | oil on canvas |
| Painting style: | expressionism, École de Paris |
| Located: | Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields (inv. 46.22) |
| Our reproduction: | hand-painted copy, oil on canvas, eight sizes or a custom size |
The Boy – Amedeo Modigliani
What is on the canvas?
A seated young figure, given almost to the knees, slightly turned and set tightly into the upright format. The clothing is dark and plain, with no coat collar; the shirt collar is light and the only bright note in the lower half of the canvas. The hands lie one over the other in the lap and are painted larger and more angular than the face — the disproportion is deliberate, and Modigliani uses it often with young working people. The face is a long oval, the eyes almond-shaped, the look held back. The ground is divided into two fields of different depth, with no objects in it, so that nothing pulls the eye away from the figure.
Who is in the picture?
The museum’s record gives the sitter no name. The title says only that this is a boy, or a young man, and we go no further. The work belongs to a run of portraits of young people in trades that Modigliani painted in his last years — apprentices, servant girls, farm boys. These portraits have none of the display of the bourgeois portrait: the sitter sits the way someone sits at the end of a long day, and that is exactly why they can be looked at for a long time. The circle the painter belonged to is the one we now call the École de Paris.
The record of the original, and a correction to the year
The original is oil on canvas. The museum measures it in inches; converted, that is 92.1 × 60.3 cm, and dates it 1918. ⚠️ Here we have corrected something: this page previously gave 1919. The public database we otherwise draw on gives 1919 as well, but the record of the institution that holds the work outranks it, and so we now print 1918. The museum also says how the canvas entered the collection: as a gift of Mrs. Julian Bobbs in memory of William Ray Adams. The museum makes the image of the work available as public domain. The work also has its own Wikidata entry, which stays with the older year.
The motif among the painter’s works
Beside this canvas our shelf carries Boy in Short Pants, Boy in a Striped Sweater and The Young Apprentice; together they amount to a gallery of the young people of a single neighbourhood. What is striking is how little Modigliani distinguishes them in character and how much in posture: one props up his head, one sits straight, one has his hands folded. For a comparison with a girl’s portrait of the same period, the shelf carries Girl Standing in Black Pinafore. 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 hands decide everything: painted in the “right” proportion to the face, the portrait loses the awkward seriousness the original has. The hands are therefore painted at the size the original gives them, even where that looks too large. Before dispatch you receive a photograph of the finished canvas and approve it. It is never a print.
Which size for which wall?
On this motif the answer is unusually simple: our 60 × 92 cm is practically the original. The museum gives 92.1 × 60.3 cm, so our canvas is one and three millimetres out. If you want the work at exactly the scale Modigliani painted it, this is one of the rare chances on this shelf. For a smaller room 50 × 80 cm is enough; for a main wall 70 × 110 cm. 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 Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, accession number 46.22, a gift of Mrs. Julian Bobbs in memory of William Ray Adams.
Do you have the size of the original?
Practically, yes. The original measures 92.1 × 60.3 cm, and our 60 × 92 cm is one and three millimetres out.
How closely does it follow the original’s proportions?
The original measures 60 × 92 cm, and that is exactly the size we list: 60 x 92 cm. The proportions are the original’s, with no deviation.
- Subject: a seated young man in dark working clothes, hands folded in his lap, a light shirt collar, a two-part ground
- Original: 92.1 × 60.3 cm, oil on canvas, 1918, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, inv. 46.22
- Ours: hand-painted oil on canvas, eight sizes or a custom size; the 60 × 92 cm rung is millimetres from the original
- Worth knowing: we corrected the year from 1919 to 1918, on the record of the museum that holds the work
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.
