Provenance

The artist, Nice; probably transferred to Léopold Zborowski, Paris, about 1919 [see note 1]; probably sold to Mary Quinn Sullivan (née Mary Josephine Quinn, Mrs. Cornelius J. Sullivan, 1877–1939), New York, by 1935 [see note 2]; sold to Kate L. Brewster, Chicago (née Kate Lancaster; 1879–1947), December 20, 1935; bequeathed to the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn., 1947

Note 1: Léopold Zborowski, a fixture in left bank avant-garde circles of Paris, was a friend and the primary dealer of Modigliani in the artist’s final years. In a letter that the artist sent from Nice to Zborowski in early 1919, he refers to a group of small heads that he made of his wife, Jean Hébuterne (1898–1920), and was planning to send to Paris: “J’attend [sic] qu’une petite tête que j’ai fait de ma femme soit sèche pour vous envoyer, avec celles que vous connaissez, quatre toiles.” (« I am waiting until a little head that I made of my wife is dry before sending you—with the ones you know about—four canvases. ») (Amedeo Modigliani to Léopold Zborowski, early 1919, in Jeanne Modigliani, Modigliani: Man and Myth, trans. Esther Rowland Clifford (New York: Orion, 1958), no. 42) There are four small heads of the artist’s wife that have been identified by Modigliani scholars. It is possible the letter references “Portrait of a Young Woman.”

Note 2: According to a cataloguing sheet in the painting’s accession file, “Portrait of a Young Woman” was brought to Mrs. Sullivan by Léopold Zborowski’s younger brother, “Stanley” (probably Miezyslaw) Zborowski. Zborowski and his brother sold off a large portion of the dealer’s collection after 1929 as a result of the financial crash, with his holdings also liquidated after his death in 1932.