{"id":206614,"date":"2026-08-27T10:39:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T08:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svetslik.si\/nekategorizirano\/the-young-apprentice-2\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T14:15:35","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T12:15:35","slug":"the-young-apprentice","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/svetslik.si\/en\/amedeo-modigliani\/the-young-apprentice\/","title":{"rendered":"Amedeo Modigliani \u2013 The Young Apprentice"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Young Apprentice is a large canvas of the last war years, held by the Mus\u00e9e de l\u2019Orangerie in Paris as part of the Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume collection, under inventory number RF 1963-71. The boy in a dark blue-grey jacket props up his head with a raised hand, his elbow resting on a pale ledge at the right edge. 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Title:<\/td>\nThe Young Apprentice<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Other titles:<\/td>\nLe Jeune Apprenti (the title in the Orangerie\u2019s own record)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Painter:<\/td>\nAmedeo Modigliani (1884\u20131920)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Year of creation:<\/td>\n1917\u20131919 (per the Orangerie\u2019s record)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Original size (width \u00d7 height):<\/td>\n65 \u00d7 100 cm<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Original technique:<\/td>\noil on canvas<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Painting style:<\/td>\nexpressionism, \u00c9cole de Paris<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Located:<\/td>\nMus\u00e9e de l\u2019Orangerie, Paris \u2013 Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume collection<\/a> (inv. RF 1963-71)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Our reproduction:<\/td>\nhand-painted copy, oil on canvas, eight sizes or a custom size<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The Young Apprentice \u2013 Amedeo Modigliani<\/h2>\n

What is on the canvas?<\/h3>\n

The figure is seated and shown three-quarters on. The boy wears a dark blue-grey jacket over a white shirt; his right hand is raised and his palm supports his head, the elbow resting on a pale ledge at the right edge. The other hand lies across his lap. The trousers are light, a grey-beige. The face is long and smooth, the eyes almond-shaped. The museum\u2019s record points out that the whole palette is very soft \u2014 nothing but greys and browns \u2014 and that only two things break it: the white shirt collar and the intense blue of the eyes. The ground is a flat blue-grey wall, interrupted at the right by a lighter field. The signature is at the upper left.<\/p>\n

What does the museum say about this canvas?<\/h3>\n

The Orangerie\u2019s record is unusually concrete and worth passing on, because it says more than our own looking does. The pose with the head in the hand is not Modigliani\u2019s invention: he takes it from C\u00e9zanne\u2019s drinkers and smokers. What interests the painter here is the relation between the figure and its surroundings \u2014 the chair and the table seem to become one with the body and to free it of its weight. The strongly stylised forms, the hand laid on the leg for instance, recall Modigliani\u2019s sculpture; he was a carver as well as a painter, and returned to painting only after those years of stone. And one more name: the contours are sinuous and the forms flattened, which the record puts down to the influence of Gauguin. The contrast between the fine, young, smooth face and the coarse hands is what makes this the portrait of a working life rather than of a pose.<\/p>\n

The record of the original, and what we corrected<\/h3>\n

The original is oil on canvas and measures 65 \u00d7 100 cm; it is in the Mus\u00e9e de l\u2019Orangerie under inventory number RF 1963-71. \u26a0\ufe0f We have corrected the date. This page previously gave the year 1918. The Orangerie\u2019s record dates the work between 1917 and 1919<\/em>, that is as a range and not as a year, and because the institution that holds the work outranks every other record, we now print the range. No other figure was changed. Modigliani spent several months of 1918 and 1919 in the south of France to repair his failing health; the stay was paid for by his other dealer, L\u00e9opold Zborowski. The work also has its own Wikidata entry<\/a>, which is less precise about the date than the museum is.<\/p>\n

The motif among the painter\u2019s works<\/h3>\n

In his last years Modigliani painted a run of young people in trades: apprentices, servant girls, farm boys. These portraits have none of the display of the bourgeois portrait, and they stand apart among the works of the \u00c9cole de Paris; the sitter sits the way someone sits who has worked all day, and that is exactly why they are the easiest to look at for a long time. Our shelf carries beside it The Boy<\/a>, Boy in Short Pants<\/a> and Boy in a Striped Sweater<\/a>. The collection The Young Apprentice belongs to is named after the dealer Paul Guillaume \u2014 Paul Guillaume<\/a> is on this shelf too, so you can see the collector and one of his pictures side by side. The whole selection is in the Amedeo Modigliani gallery<\/a>, and we have written a longer article<\/a> about the painter.<\/p>\n

How is our hand-painted version made?<\/h3>\n

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 palette decides everything: if the greys and browns drift too far apart, the white collar and the blue eyes stop reading as the only light places, and the canvas loses exactly what makes it quiet. Before dispatch you receive a photograph of the finished canvas and approve it. It is never a print.<\/p>\n

Which size for which wall?<\/h3>\n

For this motif we suggest 70 \u00d7 100 cm, the size closest to the original. The canvas is large and upright and the figure nearly life-size, so it carries a main wall; for a smaller room 60 \u00d7 90 cm is still enough to keep the hand and the face legible. Below 50 \u00d7 70 cm we advise against it, because it is precisely the contrast between the smooth face and the coarse hands that goes. If you want a post-impressionist painting in a size that is not on the list, we make it to order<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Frequently asked questions<\/h3>\n

Where is the original?<\/h4>\n

In the Mus\u00e9e de l\u2019Orangerie in Paris, inventory number RF 1963-71, in the Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume collection. The museum does not show it continuously.<\/p>\n

Which size should I choose?<\/h4>\n

For a main wall 70 \u00d7 100 cm; for a smaller room 60 \u00d7 90 cm.<\/p>\n

How closely does it follow the original’s proportions?<\/h4>\n

The original measures 65 \u00d7 100 cm, and that is exactly the size we list: 65 x 100 cm. The proportions are the original’s, with no deviation.<\/p>\n