Oil paint on canvas
Tate Modern
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<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/amedeo-modigliani-1648" aria-label="More by Amedeo Modigliani" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Amedeo Modigliani</a>
Little Peasant
Presented by Miss Jenny Blaker in memory of Hugh Blaker 1941
actions: postures and motions
adults
chair
clothing and personal items
domestic
furnishings
hat
interior - non-specific
interiors
man
objects
people
sitting
<p>This is one of a small group of paintings that Modigliani made of young people. The artist inscribed the work's title on the bottom right of the canvas, identifying the sitter as a 'peasant boy'. However, there is some doubt over the accuracy of the title. The same model seems to appear in another painting titled 'The Young Apprentice'. Modigliani had long been influenced by the painter Paul Cézanne (1839–1906). This painting was probably inspired by Cézanne's paintings of country workers. Cézanne’s subjects were also positioned in the centre of the canvas and painted in mostly blue tones.</p><p><em>Gallery label, August 2020</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
19 June 2002 – 8 September 2002
2002-09-08
19 June 2002 – 8 September 2002
2002-09-08
2002-06-19
National Gallery, Sainsbury Wing (London, UK)
2002-06-19
Fabric of Vision: Dress and Drapery in Painting
Loan-out
21 May 2004 – 29 May 2005
2005-05-29
21 May 2004 – 19 September 2004
2004-09-19
2004-05-21
Jewish Museum (New York, USA)
23 October 2004 – 23 January 2005
2005-01-23
2004-10-23
Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, Canada)
http://www.ago.net
19 February 2005 – 29 May 2005
2005-05-29
2005-02-19
Phillips Collection (Washington, USA)
2004-05-21
Amedeo Modigliani Retrospective
Loan-out
8 July 2006 – 15 October 2006
2006-10-15
8 July 2006 – 15 October 2006
2006-10-15
2006-07-08
Royal Academy of Arts (London, UK)
http://www.royalacademy.org.uk
2006-07-08
Modigliani and his Models
Loan-out
6 March 2007 – 27 May 2007
2007-05-27
6 March 2007 – 27 May 2007
2007-05-27
2007-03-06
State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow, Russia)
2007-03-06
Amedeo Modigliani
Loan-out
5 February 2008 – 18 May 2008
2008-05-18
5 February 2008 – 18 May 2008
2008-05-18
2008-02-05
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (Madrid, Spain)
2008-02-05
Modigliani and his Times
Loan-out
5 April 2008 – 5 October 2008
2008-10-05
8 June 2008 – 3 August 2008
2008-08-03
2008-06-08
Himeji City Museum of Art (Himeji, Japan)
12 August 2008 – 5 October 2008
2008-10-05
2008-08-12
Iwate Museum of Art (Iwate, Japan)
http://www.ima.or.jp
2008-04-05
Modigliani: A Retrospective
Loan-out
21 January 2009 – 13 September 2009
2009-09-13
15 October 2008 – 13 September 2009
2009-09-13
2008-10-15
Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art (London, UK)
2009-01-21
Reciprocal loan
Loan-out
13 June 2013 – 13 October 2013
2013-10-13
13 June 2013 – 13 October 2013
2013-10-13
2013-06-13
Collection Jean Planque Musée Granet (Aix-en-Provence, France)
2013-06-13
Le Grand Atelier du Midi 1880 - 1960
Loan-out
19 July 2013
19 July 2013
2013-07-19
Tate Liverpool (Liverpool, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/
2013-07-19
Henri Matisse
Collection based display
3 August 2015 – 12 June 2016
2016-06-12
3 August 2015 – 12 June 2016
2016-06-12
2015-08-03
Tate Liverpool (Liverpool, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/
2015-08-03
Paul Cezanne
Collection based display
26 April 2016
26 April 2016
2016-04-26
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2016-04-26
Studio Practice
Collection based display
23 November 2017 – 2 April 2018
2018-04-02
23 November 2017 – 2 April 2018
2018-04-02
2017-11-23
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2017-11-23
AMEDEO MODIGLIANI
Exhibition
9 April 2022 – 18 July 2022
2022-07-18
9 April 2022 – 18 July 2022
2022-07-18
2022-04-09
Nakanoshima Museum of Art (Osaka, Japan)
2022-04-09
Modigliani and His Time: Paris, Cosmopolis and Modern Art
Loan-out
16 October 2022 – 29 January 2023
2023-01-29
16 October 2022 – 29 January 2023
2023-01-29
2022-10-16
The Barnes Foundation (Philadelphia, US)
2022-10-16
Modigliani Under the Microscope
Loan-out
The Little Peasant
support: 1000 × 645 mm
frame: 1155 × 810 × 65 mm
Presented by Miss Jenny Blaker in memory of Hugh Blaker 1941
<div class="text">
<p>This is one of a small group of paintings that Modigliani made of young people. The artist inscribed the work's title on the bottom right of the canvas, identifying the sitter as a 'peasant boy'. However, there is some doubt over the accuracy of the title. The same model seems to appear in another painting titled 'The Young Apprentice'. Modigliani had long been influenced by the painter Paul Cézanne (1839–1906). This painting was probably inspired by Cézanne's paintings of country workers. Cézanne’s subjects were also positioned in the centre of the canvas and painted in mostly blue tones.</p>
</div>

Display caption
2020-08-21T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>Amedeo Modigliani</b><span> 1884-1920 </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/modigliani-the-little-peasant-n05269" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05269</span></a> </span><b>Le Petit Paysan</b><span> (The Little Peasant) </span><i>c.</i><span>1918 </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>Inscribed 'Modigliani.' t.r. and 'le petit paysan' b.r.</span>
<br/><span>Oil on canvas, 39 3/8 x 25 3/8 (100 x 65)</span>
<br/><span>Presented by Miss Jenny Blaker in memory of Hugh Blaker 1941</span>
<br/><i>Prov:</i><span>
Hugh Blaker, Isleworth-on-Thames (purchased from the artist through Léopold Zborowski, Paris, 1919); Jenny Blaker, Isleworth-on-Thames, 1936</span>
<br/><i>Exh:</i><span>
</span><i>French Art 1914-19</i><span>, Mansard Gallery, London, August-September 1919 (41) as 'Little Peasant'; </span><i>Pictures by Modern Artists</i><span>, Mills' Hall, Dublin, January-February 1922 (no catalogue traced); on loan to the Tate Gallery 1927-39; </span><i>Modigliani</i><span>, Storran Gallery, London, April 1937 (8, repr.); </span><i>Modern Italian Art</i><span>, Tate Gallery, June-July 1950 (not in catalogue); </span><i>Modigliani: Paintings and Drawings</i><span>, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, January-February 1961 (15, repr.); Los Angeles County Museum, March-April 1961 (15, repr.); </span><i>Modigliani</i><span>, RSA, Edinburgh, August-September 1963 (39); Tate Gallery, September-November 1963 (39)</span>
<br/><i>Lit:</i><span>
Arthur Pfannstiel, </span><i>Modigliani</i><span>
(Paris 1929), appendix p.18, repr. facing p.30 (dated 1917); Nina Hamnett, </span><i>Laughing Torso</i><span> (London 1932), p.116; Arthur Pfannstiel, </span><i>Modigliani et son Oeuvre</i><span> (Paris 1956), No.121, p.92 (dated 1917); Ambrogio Ceroni, </span><i>Amedeo Modigliani: Peintre</i><span>
(Milan 1958), No.104, p.59, repr. pl.104 (dated 1918); 'The Blaker Diary: some Extracts with a Memoir by Murray Urquhart' in </span><i>Apollo</i><span>, LXXVIII, 1963, pp.293-8, repr. p.298; J. Lanthemann, </span><i>Modigliani 1884-1920: Catalogue Raisonné</i><span>
(Barcelona 1970), No.373, p.133, repr. p.258 (dated 1919); Leone Piccioni and Ambrogio Ceroni, </span><i>I Dipinti di Modigliani</i><span>
(Milan 1970), No.257, p.101, repr. p.101 and pl.L in colour (dated 1918); Kenneth Clark, </span><i>Another Part of the Wood</i><span>
(London 1974), pp.78-9</span>
<br/><i>Repr:</i><span>
</span><i>Burlington Magazine</i><span>, XXXV, 1919, p.121; </span><i>Colour</i><span>, XI, December 1919, p.94 in colour </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>The same model posed for another <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> of the same size in the Louvre which is sometimes known as 'The Young Apprentice' (Lanthemann No.372), in which he appears without a hat and with his left elbow resting on a table. There are also four other rather similar paintings of youths of about the same period (Lanthemann Nos.368-9, 378, 412), including two of a boy with red hair in similar poses: one, which is now in the Guggenheim Museum, New York, with his hands crossed in his lap (No.368), and the other, now owned by the Indianapolis Museum of Art, with his left elbow likewise on a table (No.369). The latter is inscribed 'Modigliani | Cagnes'. </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>Modigliani went to the South of France at the end of March or the beginning of April 1918 and apparently spent the first months, until at least July 1918, at Cagnes, and from then on mainly at Nice. He returned to Paris on 31 May 1919. Joseph Lanthemann has suggested (letter of 3 May 1976) that the present work was painted at Nice, on the basis that it appears to show the same room as several <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/portrait" title="Glossary definition for 'Portrait'"><span>portraits</span></a> of Jeanne Hébuterne (Lanthemann Nos.359-61) which he believes to have been painted there, but the possibility that it was done at Cagnes within a few weeks of the two portraits of the boy with red hair cannot be ruled out. It seems to date in any case from his stay in the South of France, which may partly account for its exceptionally Cézannesque character. Though Lanthemann dates it 1919, it does not have the extreme stylisation and elongation of Modigliani's late work and therefore seems more likely to have been painted in 1918. </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>Hugh Blaker, its first owner, recorded in his diary on 31 March 1932, after learning of Zborowski's death: 'I was a friend in 1919 when he hawked Modigliani in vain in London. My purchase alone enabled him to pay his rent of the first floor room. He brought over Modigliani stripped of stretchers and frames. He rolled them in bundles to dodge freightage. He laid them on the floor. I bought four of them. So far as I know, I was the only man in London to care a tuppenny damn about 'em.' </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>Zborowski's visit to London was made in connection with the exhibition </span><i>French Art 1914-19</i><span> at the Mansard Gallery, which he helped to organise in association with Sir Osbert and Sir Sacheverell Sitwell. Sir Osbert's account of the exhibition in </span><i>Laughter in the Next Room</i><span>
(London 1949), pp.148-66 makes it clear that Modigliani's paintings, which had never been seen in England before, were not quite as unfavourably received as Hugh Blaker suggests; indeed pictures were also purchased by Arnold Bennett, by Sir Osbert and Sir Sacheverell Sitwell jointly, and by at least one other collector. 'The Little Peasant' was even reproduced in 1919 both in the </span><i>Burlington Magazine</i><span> and in the magazine </span><i>Colour</i><span>. </span>
<br/></p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/><span>Ronald Alley, </span><i>Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists</i><span>, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.529-31, reproduced p.529</span>
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-15T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: postures and motions adults chair clothing and personal items domestic furnishings hat interior - non-specific interiors man objects people sitting