{"id":207855,"date":"2026-08-27T11:55:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T09:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svetslik.si\/nekategorizirano\/madame-hanka-zborowska-2\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T14:15:35","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T12:15:35","slug":"madame-hanka-zborowska","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/svetslik.si\/en\/amedeo-modigliani\/madame-hanka-zborowska\/","title":{"rendered":"Amedeo Modigliani \u2013 Madame Hanka Zborowska"},"content":{"rendered":"

Madame Hanka Zborowska is a canvas held by the S\u00e3o Paulo Museum of Art under inventory number MASP.00152 and dated to about 1918. The sitter is seated in a dark dress, hands in her lap, her head tilted to one side. The museum has since re-identified the sitter and lists the work under a different name today; that is dealt with below. 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>\nMadame Hanka Zborowska<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Other titles:<\/td>\nLunia Czechowska (the title MASP lists the work under today)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Painter:<\/td>\nAmedeo Modigliani (1884\u20131920)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Year of creation:<\/td>\nabout 1918 (the MASP record reads \u201ccirca 1918\u201d)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Original size (width \u00d7 height):<\/td>\n54 \u00d7 81 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>\nS\u00e3o Paulo Museum of Art (MASP)<\/a> (inv. MASP.00152)<\/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

Madame Hanka Zborowska \u2013 Amedeo Modigliani<\/h2>\n

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

A female figure to the hips, seated, slightly turned. The face is a long oval with a narrow chin; the nose straight and long, the mouth small and dark red. The neck is lengthened in Modigliani\u2019s way and the head tilted to the left, so that the axis of the body and the axis of the head do not run parallel \u2014 it is that tilt by which Modigliani\u2019s late portraits are recognisable at a glance. The hair is dark and pinned up. The dress is dark and closed to the throat, the hands resting quietly in the lap. The ground is divided into two vertical fields of different depth, with no objects in it.<\/p>\n

\u26a0\ufe0f Who is really in the picture?<\/h3>\n

Here we have to be exact, because the record has changed. This canvas entered the MASP collection under the name Madame Zborowski<\/em>, that is as a portrait of the wife of the dealer L\u00e9opold Zborowski, and the market has known it under that name for decades \u2014 which is where the title it carries with us comes from. The museum, however, states in its curatorial text that it was later proved that the sitter was not Zborowski\u2019s wife but a friend of his, Lunia Czechowska<\/strong>, whom Modigliani painted a number of times; both belonged to the circle we now call the \u00c9cole de Paris. MASP lists the work today under the title Lunia Czechowska. We have not changed the title of our page \u2014 buyers and catalogues know it under the older name \u2014 and the museum\u2019s name is in the table above and in this paragraph. What has not changed: the accession number, the measurements and the collection are the same, and confirmed.<\/p>\n

The record of the original, and how it reached S\u00e3o Paulo<\/h3>\n

The original is oil on canvas; MASP measures it 81 \u00d7 53.5 \u00d7 2.5 cm \u2014 height, width and the depth of the stretcher \u2014 and dates it circa<\/em> 1918. \u26a0\ufe0f This page previously gave the bare year 1918; because the museum hedges the date, we hedge it too. How the canvas reached Brazil is in the record: as a gift of Raul Crespi in 1952. The museum adds something that places the whole group: MASP holds six paintings by Modigliani, all made between 1915 and 1919, and all of them entered the collection between 1950 and 1952. The work also has its own Wikidata entry<\/a>, which still carries the older identification of the sitter.<\/p>\n

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

If the museum\u2019s identification holds, then our shelf carries three canvases of the same woman: beside this one, Portrait of Lunia Czechowska<\/a> and Portrait of Lunia Czechowska in a White Blouse<\/a>. The comparison is worth making precisely because Modigliani did not paint them as a series: the face is tilted differently and lit differently each time. The dealer whose wife the canvas was originally taken to show is on the shelf with his own portrait, Portrait of L\u00e9opold Zborowski<\/a>, also from the MASP collection. 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 tilt of the head decides everything: too slight and the portrait turns ordinary, too strong and it turns into mannerism. The painter therefore sets the axis of the neck first and only then draws the face. 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 60 \u00d7 90 cm. The canvas is upright and narrow, so it works well on a narrow wall, beside a door or between two windows \u2014 where wider motifs find no room. For a bedroom 50 \u00d7 70 cm is enough. For a main wall 70 \u00d7 100 cm is a quiet choice, because the ground and the dress are dark and do not press forward. 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 S\u00e3o Paulo Museum of Art (MASP), inventory number MASP.00152, given by Raul Crespi in 1952.<\/p>\n

Why does our title differ from the museum\u2019s?<\/h4>\n

Because the market knows the work under the older name and buyers look for it that way. The museum\u2019s title, Lunia Czechowska, is in the table and in the text, so both names are on the page.<\/p>\n

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

The original measures 54 \u00d7 81 cm. The closest of our sizes is 40 x 60 cm: the proportions are the same, only the canvas is a different size.<\/p>\n