124 JANUARY 2004/ARTNEWS

Marc Spiegler, a Zurich correspondent ofARTnews, writes frequently about the Eu-ropean art scene for various publications.

EHIND MARCRestellini’s imposing wood desk in hisLeft Bank office, just off the boulevardSaint-Germain in Paris, an expanse ofbutcher paper stretches across the wall andaround the corner, covering half the ad-joining wall as well. Affixed to the brownsheet are several hundred playing-card-sizeimages of paintings by Amedeo Modig-liani, arranged chronologically up to 1920,when the artist died of tubercular meningi-tis at the age of 35.

Seven years ago, the Wildenstein Insti-tute of Paris—an art-history research institution founded by the family of deal-ers—announced Restellini as its collabo-rator in producing two new catalogues

THE EXPERTS BATTLE

M o d i g l i a n iLawsuits and charges of slander

multiply as two scholars compete to berecognized as the ultimate authority

BY MARC SP IEGLER

Marc Restellini has been working ona Modigliani catalogue raisonné for seven years. “I expected this

to be hard,” he says, “but not to be so crazy.”

Christian Parisot, seen here withModigliani’s daughter, Jeanne,

at an exhibition opening in Spain in 1983, is also writing

a catalogue raisonné.

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raisonnés, one dealing with Modigliani’s paintings and theother with his drawings. In the course of the project,Restellini, 39, has rejected as false hundreds of paintingsthat were brought to him for examination. “There must be atleast a thousand fake paintings,” he says. “We have dossiersand dossiers filled with known forgeries. A lot of the ownersdid not even bother submitting their works to me.”

All the paintings taped to the butcher paper will be includedin the catalogue. Only a half-dozen more await a final decision.In each case, Restellini’s rul-ing could have a multimillion-dollar impact: Modigliani’s1917 masterpiece RecliningNude (on Her Left Side) soldat Christie’s New York lastNovember for an artist’srecord of $26.9 million.

Considering the highstakes, it’s hardly surprisingthat Restellini has been besetfrom all sides since the an-nouncement of his project.His selection as author of thecatalogues raisonnés causeddebate because he was only32 at the time. While he hadmounted five exhibitions in-volving Modigliani—three ofthem in Japan—only twowere dedicated entirely to theartist. After studying and thenlecturing at the Sorbonne,Restellini became an inde-pendent curator, organizingexhibitions for small muse-ums all over the world. In2000 he was appointed artis-tic director of the Musée duLuxembourg in Paris, an in-stitution that functions underthe auspices of the FrenchSenate. Late last year he leftto found the Pinacothèque deParis, an entrepreneurial pri-vate museum that he hopes will be the first in a chain ofvenues for touring exhibitions.

Since undertaking the Modigliani project, Restellini hasbeen sued—once successfully—by collectors. He has engagedin a public feud with fellow Parisian art historian ChristianParisot, who inherited from Modigliani’s daughter the droitmorale, or moral right, granted an artist’s heirs by French law,to authenticate works by the artist. And he has clashed withpowerful dealers, including Ernst Beyeler and David Nahmad,in disputes over certain works.

Over the last three years, Restellini’s project has been bothscaled back and delayed. The drawings catalogue has beenabandoned altogether, and the paintings catalogue, originallyscheduled for publication in 2002, has now been postponed tolate 2005 or even 2006. “ I expected this to be hard, but not tobe so crazy,” he says. “I’ve never regretted undertaking thiscatalogue raisonné, but we are constantly taking hits full inthe face.”

ORN IN 1884 TO A FAMILY OF SEPHARDIC JEWSin northern Italy, Modigliani moved to Paris in 1906, set-tling first in Montmartre and then moving to Montparnassein 1909. A central figure in the era’s artistic and literaryavant-garde, he painted incisive portraits of many of its

members—Diego Rivera, Picasso, Juan Gris, Jacques Lipchitz,Moïse Kisling, and Chaim Soutine among them—before turn-ing to the long-necked nudes for which he is now most famous.Commonly called le peintre maudit (the cursed painter),

Modigliani led a life markedby epic indulgence in drugs,drink, and womanizing—socinematic in its highs andlows that it has inspired an up-coming Hollywood film.

While events surroundingthe forthcoming catalogueraisonné have also turned dra-matic, initially Restellini wasembraced by dealers and auc-tion houses as the ultimateexpert on Modigliani. Theywelcomed his promise of ex-tensive reliance on scientifictesting and were reassured bythe Wildenstein Institute’shistory of publishing defini-tive catalogues raisonnés forartists such as Redon, Monet,Gauguin, and others. TheModigliani market needed ir-reproachable expertise: fakesaccumulate around everyhigh-priced artist, and thepainter seemed to attract evenmore than the usual number.“Some artists have a historyof controversy, and Modig-liani is a prime example,”says David Norman, Sotheby’scochairman for Impressionistand modern art worldwide andhead of that department inNew York. “He’s very popu-

lar, and his signature style is easy to fake, so there’s alwaysbeen a high degree of forgery, just as with Renoir and Rodin.”

Compounding the problem of forgery is the legacy ofLéopold Zborowski, the Polish émigré who was Modigliani’slast dealer. “Zborowski can be both a good and a bad prove-nance,” explains Marc Blondeau, the Geneva-based art adviserand private dealer. Aside from being a notoriously bad record-keeper and accumulating crippling debts, Blondeau says,Zborowski is widely suspected of deploying Modigliani’sgood friend Kisling to “finish up” unfinished works, thus capi-talizing on the market spike that followed the painter’s earlydeath and the suicide of his 21-year-old lover, JeanneHébuterne, two days later.

“I remember getting one of his paintings from an excellentFrench collection for Sotheby’s Paris, but worrying becausethe provenance went back to Zborowski,” recalls Blondeau,who headed the auction house’s French operation for 12 yearsbefore going private. “I accepted it for sale but maintained the

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Modigliani in his Montparnasse studio, 1915–16, when he was a central figure in the Parisian avant-garde.

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right to later withdraw it. Then I asked three major dealers fortheir opinions. None of them would give me a decision. Theyall asked, ‘What do the others think?’ I pulled it out of the saleat the last minute.”

Blondeau’s problem stemmed from the fact that the paintingdoes not figure in the art market’s Modigliani bible: Italian au-thor Ambrogio Ceroni’s Amedeo Modigliani, Peintre, firstpublished in 1958 and last updated in 1970, the year its authordied. But Ceroni only approved works he had seen, whichmeans that the book misses many authentic Modiglianis.“Ceroni is so well respected because he was extremely conser-vative, so every work in there is almost certainly right,” saysKenneth Wayne, curator of modern art at Buffalo’s Albright-Knox Art Gallery, who organized the traveling exhibition“Modigliani and the Artists of Montparnasse” in 2002. “ButCeroni never traveled to the States, so paintings in Americanmuseums were oftennot included—such asGirl with Blue Eyes,which belongs to theMcNay Art Museumin San Antonio.” Nordid Ceroni have ac-cess to the long-lostarchives of Paul Guil-laume, Modigliani’sfirst dealer, an invalu-able resource nowavailable to scholars.Finally, the prove-nances provided byCeroni—who was abanker, not an art his-torian—would notmeet the standards oftoday’s cataloguesraisonnés, since heoften failed to trace a work back to the artist’s studio or dealer,noting only its current owner.

Despite these deficiencies, Ceroni’s work rules the marketby a universal pact among high-end dealers. Unless aModigliani has a perfect provenance, not being listed amongCeroni’s 337 paintings will slash its market value by half oreven two-thirds. “The drama here is that I could find aModigliani in an attic tomorrow, with a letter from Modiglianiattached to it, and people would still hesitate,” explains amajor Parisian dealer who requested anonymity. To prove thepoint, he calls over a colleague who wandered into his gallery.

“Someone just offered me a beautiful Modigliani, but it’snot in Ceroni,” says the dealer. “What do you think?” The col-league wavers momentarily, then warns his friend: “Don’ttouch it.”

The problems in Modigliani’s market are exacerbated by thescant scholarship concerning the artist, especially when com-pared with his School of Paris peers. Even fundamental infor-mation such as precisely where and when he exhibited was lostuntil Wayne pieced together Modigliani’s exhibition history forhis show’s catalogue. Wayne demonstrated that Modigliani, farfrom being unknown outside France, exhibited in Zurich, Lon-don, and New York. Such lacunae exist in part because theartist’s life was short and chaotic, leaving little material forstudy. And some of the important material that did survive re-

mained unknown for years, such as the Guillaume archives andthe works that fueled Noël Alexandre’s groundbreaking 1993publication The Unknown Modigliani: Drawings from the Col-lection of Paul Alexandre, a 600-page treasure trove drawnfrom the archives of his father, the Parisian doctor who was theartist’s earliest and most fervent patron.

Other art historians have published Modigliani cataloguessince Ceroni, including Parisot, the German scholar JosephLanthemann, and the Italian art historian Osvaldo Patani.Lanthemann listed 420 paintings in his 1970 catalogue; Patanipared it down to 349 in 1991. But because all of these booksincluded works other experts considered dubious, none everinspired enough confidence to supercede Ceroni. Restellinipredicts that his catalogue will include 400 paintings, com-pared with Ceroni’s 337.

While dealers and auction-house experts are waiting untilRestellini’s tome ap-pears before decidingwhether to accept it asthe definitive refer-ence, individual col-lectors are reactingimmediately to his de-cisions—especiallywhen works have beenrejected. “I wouldn’tsay Restellini wasnaïve, but he probablydid not expect all thiscontroversy,” saysParis dealer ManuelSchmit. “He took onan artist where allthese owners have cer-tificates from variousother experts. Andwhen he rejects their

painting, it suddenly drops in value from $3 million to the priceof the frame.”

ESTELLINI IS ALSO BEING CHALLENGED BY Acompetitor. Christian Parisot, a longtime professor at theUniversity of Orléans, says he will publish the fourth vol-ume of his ongoing Modigliani catalogue raisonné this year.The 56-year-old Parisot’s connection to the artist dates back

to 1973, when he met and befriended Modigliani’s daughter,Jeanne, while doing research for his doctorate in art history.

Sent after the death of her parents to live with an aunt inModigliani’s native Livorno, Jeanne returned to Paris at age19 and became involved in promoting her father’s legacy, pub-lishing the 1958 biography Modigliani: Man and Myth. Shedied in 1984, leaving Parisot in possession of the AmedeoModigliani Legal Archives, a collection of about 100 items—mostly letters and postcards—related to the artist. Parisot haspublished virtually all of these documents, some repeatedly, inhis 38 books and catalogues devoted to Modigliani,Hébuterne, and their circle.

He has also arranged 42 exhibitions centered around thesame group. One of these, a 2002 traveling show in Spain,comprised of Hébuterne’s drawings from Parisot’s own collec-tion, turned controversial. It was interrupted in Segovia whenpolice, responding to a complaint filed by French lawyer Luc

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Reclining Nude (on Her Left Side), 1917, set a record for Modigliani when itsold for $26.9 million at Christie’s New York last November.

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Prunet, Hébuterne’s great-nephew, seized the works as allegedfakes. Charo San Juan, who coordinated the exhibition for thefirm L&D, says that the case was returned to France and thendropped. According to Parisot, further police investigationproved Prunet wrong, and a Barcelona exhibiton of the samematerial will take place this year.

Parisot also inherited something more important than thearchives from Jeanne Modigliani: her droit morale over her fa-ther’s work. The droit morale was intended to ensure that anartist’s heirs would have significant control over their ances-tor’s legacy. In practice it often proves nettlesome; the chil-dren of an artist are not automatically experts in his work.

Jeanne Modigliani didn’t grow up in her father’s atelier; shewas barely a year old when she was sent to Livorno. Yet as anadult she was active in authenticating Modiglianis. “Jeannewas impossible because she signed authentication certificatesin a very subjective way, without doing serious research,”Blondeau recalls. “She even authorized people to producebronze reproductions of her father’s work, despite the fact thathe only worked in stone.” Speaking in her defense, Parisotpoints out that she had the legal right to produce eight copiesof any of her father’s sculptures. Although the practice of re-producing sculptures in materials other than the original islegal, it is regarded by many as unethical.

Restellini contests the very basis of his rival Parisot’s legalauthority, pointing out that Modigliani—who was not marriedto Hébuterne—never officially recognized Jeanne as hisdaughter, meaning that she had no droit morale to bequeath toanyone. “That’s pure slander,” retorts Parisot. In 1923, hesays, Jeanne was recognized under French and Italian laws asthe couple’s only rightful heir, with both sets of grandparentssigning the documents.

Restellini and Parisot have a long history, starting with an ex-hibition Restellini created as a graduate student, for which herequested a text from Parisot. Restellini says that Parisot’s textwas “inept” and labels the decision to collaborate with the olderscholar an “error of youth.” In recent years the two men havedisparaged each other in the press, each claiming to be the realModigliani expert.

Parisot maintains that Restellini has been co-opted by theWildenstein family’s art-dealing interests. Restellini refusesany comparison whatsoever with Parisot, likening him toHolocaust-denying historians. “What Parisot’s doing isn’t arthistory,” Restellini says. “It destroys and deforms everythingModigliani did. Someone once approached me saying they hadthe archives of [Modigliani expert] Joseph Lanthemann. Theyoffered the documents to me if I would authenticate aModigliani that they owned. Parisot had already published itas authentic, but I had it tested and it’s clearly fake.” Thepainting, Nu couché, Restellini explains, shows traces of tita-nium, a paint additive foreign to Modigliani’s works. Asked toexplain that discrepancy, Parisot labels the presence of tita-nium inconclusive, speculating that it could be in the paint-ing’s varnish. “We tested multiple layers and found traceseverywhere,” Restellini replies. “That painting is riddled withtitanium. It’s not the varnish.”

Three years ago, with the financial support of his Italianpublisher, Canale Arte, Parisot announced the foundation ofthe Modigliani Institute, with offices in Paris and New York.Its mission was to clarify matters surrounding the artist. Gilt-edged invitations were sent to the art press, auction-house ex-perts, and dealers. But most invitees stayed away; few articles

Blue Eyes (Portrait of Madame Jeanne Hébuterne), 1917, one of many portraits Modigliani painted of his last lover.

Léopold Zborowski, Modigliani’s last dealer, 1917–18.

ARTNEWS/JANUARY 2004 127

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about the new organization appeared, and several of those thatdid questioned the standing of Parisot’s committee members.Currently, that committee is composed of Parisot; ClaudeMollard, who was among the founders of the Centre GeorgesPompidou; Frédéric Pfannstiel, son of Arthur Pfannstiel, whowrote the first Modigliani catalogue, in 1929; arts journalistand prolific author Gérard-Georges Lemaire; Masaaki Iseki,director of Tokyo’s Metropolitan Teien Art Museum; andFranco Tagliapietra of the Accademia de Venezia, author ofRitratto di Amedeo Modigliani.

Despite Canale Arte’s investment of $50,000 to launch theinstitute, its Manhattan office closed after one year. Parisotsays this was because too few people visited the premises to justify its Madison Avenue rent. ItsParis outpost, meanwhile, is a slightlyweather-beaten storefront near the top ofa steep residential street in Montmartre.On rough shelves around the main roomare stacked catalogues from shows thatParisot has curated. The office spacewould fit inside most corporate elevators.Yet Parisot wears his penury with pride.To him, the low-budget decor signals hisindependence—especially when com-pared to Restellini’s project, which isbased in the Wildenstein Institute, amansion brimming with art in the city’schic eighth arrondissement, only minutesfrom the Champs-Elysées.

HOUGH PARISOT PORTRAYShim as a pawn of the market,Restellini regards himself as a scholarwho speaks truth regardless of theconsequences. Certainly, he has risked

making powerful enemies. One of the veryfew works included by Ceroni thatRestellini has not slated for his catalogueis Comte Wielhorski, a portrait belongingto the Swiss gallerist and collector Ernst Beyeler, who traces itsprovenance to the legendary Swiss collector Josef Müller.

According to Beyeler, the only issue is that the subject ofthe portrait is not Count Wielhorski. “It’s just the title that iswrong,” Beyeler told ARTnews, “maybe because of an error byCeroni. That’s clear to us now when we see the other portraitsof Wielhorski.” Restellini tags the work’s chances as slim.“We’ve seen five fakes painted in the same cramped style,” heexplains. “I asked Beyeler to send me the work more than ayear ago for examination. So far, he hasn’t.” After being in-formed by ARTnews of Restellini’s stance, Bernd Dütting ofGalerie Beyeler called the issue a “misunderstanding” and saidthe painting would be sent to Restellini for analysis.

Restellini also clashed with the powerful Nahmad art-dealingfamily based in New York and London, after he rejected apainting of theirs due to an anomaly in the painting’s chem-istry. But after seeing three indisputable Modiglianis with thesame characteristics, Restellini reversed his ruling. Even beforethis episode, his relations with the Nahmads were strained.“Soon after my catalogue raisonné was announced, David Nah-mad convoked me to a meeting,” he recalls. “He told me hedidn’t really see the point of doing a new catalogue raisonné,but if I wanted to take Ceroni and add five more paintings, that

was fine with him. Now, he tells people that all the new worksI’ve added are fakes.”

Nahmad says he does not recall the meeting. “If Restellini canconvince us that a few paintings are valid with photographic ev-idence, it’s fine with me,” he says. “But adding 30 newModigliani paintings is too much—it’s ridiculous!”

Restellini’s relations with auction houses have at times beenequally difficult. In 1997, for example, Christie’s asked him toevaluate Beatrice Hastings assise, a Ceroni-certified portrait ofthe lover who preceded Hébuterne. Restellini declared the worka genuine Modigliani that had been badly compromised by ex-tensive overpainting. “It had been transformed by someone elseto make it more marketable,” he recalls. “I showed Christie’s the

original work’s photograph from the PaulGuillaume archives and said I could neverinclude the painting as it stands today, be-cause to me that is fake. They auctioned itanyway, for $2.6 million.” MargaretDoyle, Christie’s public-relations man-ager, says: “While somewhat restored, thepainting’s condition was not atypical ofworks by Modigliani, and therefore thehouse stands behind Ceroni’s attribution.”

Restellini says he has taken steps toavoid the appearance of conflict of inter-est. He has no personal contact with own-ers, who must send their works to theWildenstein Institute. Rather than relyingon other people’s judgments, he hasvowed to see every work himself. If thepurported provenance arouses doubts, herequires laboratory tests: infrared analysisof the paint layers to identify overpainting,for example, or testing for elements suchas titanium. Following the usual practicewhen dealing with owners of works sub-mitted for a catalogue raisonné, he sendsthe owners an exhaustive disclaimer stat-ing that he “need not state the reasons on

which [his decision] is based and in no event may [his decision]give rise to any claim whatsoever.”

All these steps, however, have not insulated Restellini fromlawsuits over rejected works. One case started in June 1997,when—only months after undertaking the catalogue raisonné—Restellini faxed the following letter to Phillips in London, onthe very morning of the house’s premier summer sales: “Ihereby confirm that lot 56 of the sale, Jeune Femme brune,cannot by my opinion have come from the hand of AmedeoModigliani. This painting will therefore not be included in theforthcoming catalogue raisonné of his works that I am prepar-ing with the Wildenstein Institute. Could you please conveythis information [to the audience] at the moment of the sale?”Phillips yanked the piece—estimated at £800,000 to £1 million($1.3 million to $1.7 million)—from the sale.

The owner of Jeune Femme brune, Chicago financier andindustrialist Moshe Shaltiel-Gracian, immediately demandedthat Restellini justify his decision. Restellini refused, at thatpoint and to this day. Shaltiel-Gracian then sued the Wilden-stein Institute—on whose letterhead the fax was written—first in New York, where the case was dismissed, and then inParis, where the parties are still awaiting a ruling. One majordebate is about why Restellini sent the fax in the first place.

128 JANUARY 2004/ARTNEWS

TA 1916 portrait of Paul Guillaume,

Modigliani’s first dealer and anassiduous promoter of his work.

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Shaltiel-Gracian says Restellini took it upon himself. Restel-lini says Phillips requested his opinion.

The court case puts Restellini in an ambiguous position vis-à-vis the Wildenstein Institute. The institute has given him twoassistants, unlimited access to its archives, and a promise topublish the catalogue raisonné; yet, from a legal standpoint, itholds that Restellini is a freelance contractor and therefore theinstitute cannot be held responsible for his decisions. In thecase involving Jeune Femme brune, it immediately notified thejudge that it assigned all potential liability to Restellini.

In an e-mail to ARTnews, Guy Wildenstein writes thatPhillips “asked Mr. Restellini for his opinion of the work pro-posed for sale and, with respect to the request of Phillips, Mr.Restellini gave his opinion. This wasnot an action of the Institute but of theauthor-expert.”

Citing the fact that the case remainsunresolved, Restellini declined to com-ment. But in legal filings obtained byARTnews, he argued that the late DanielWildenstein had himself proposed theproject and later vaunted Restellini’s ex-pertise to the press, and that the projecthad been undertaken as a partnership.

In another case, Swiss collector EdgarBavarel sued Restellini after he rejectedtwo works for the planned drawing cata-logue. In early 2001 a court-appointed expert found one of the drawings to be le-gitimate. But before the judge had im-posed any penalty, the case became moot:the Wildenstein Institute had abandonedthe drawings catalogue. The tactic sparedboth the Wildensteins and Restellini morelegal fees: Michel Dutilleul-Francoeur—the lawyer for Bavarel, Shaltiel-Gracian,and other Modigliani collectors—says hehad two more rejected-drawings cases inthe pipeline.

Restellini concedes that the lawsuits influenced the decisionto drop the drawings catalogue. “Drawings are so muchharder to authenticate because you can’t do the same sorts ofmaterials tests,” he explains. “And if you get sued every timeyou reject a drawing, it’s impossible to work sanely. It’s acatastrophe for Modigliani that we had to stop that project,but, in the end, I can’t be the white knight of the Modiglianimarket.” And there were other factors driving the abandon-ment. For one thing, Restellini says, he was being barragedwith calls from owners who wanted drawings authenticated,sometimes at any cost. “I was dealing with constant attemptsto coerce me, including death threats,” he recalls. “Someoneeven sent a check for two million French francs [$350,000] tomy mother. I sent it to my lawyer’s office and had him writethe collector a cease-and-desist letter.”

N ONE SENSE, RESTELLINI HAS MADE HIMSELF Alightning rod in this affair by insisting on being the sole deci-sion maker for the catalogue raisonné. “This whole debaclecould have been avoided if the Wildensteins had just estab-lished a committee,” says one New York dealer in Modiglia-

nis. “That makes the decisions much harder to contest, and itleaves the process much less open to corruption.”

Such a group of experts is commonly appointed these days.“Committees are great to have at the beginning of a catalogueraisonné, especially in the case of difficult works,” says Marie-Christine Maufus, Wildenstein’s publications director. “But forModigliani, it’s too late in the process. Almost all the workshave been surveyed, and the structure of the book has been es-tablished.” Furthermore, she says, setting up a committee nowand having its members review all of Restellini’s past decisionswould take time—further slowing a process that already lostmuch momentum after Daniel Wildenstein died in late 2001.

Wildenstein and Restellini had planned to spotlight the newlyauthenticated Modiglianis in a major exhibition timed to coin-cide with the publication of the catalogue raisonné. So, in the late

1990s, Restellini started pulling together ashow for the Musée de Luxembourg,which became the highly popular 2002 ex-hibition “Modigliani: L’Ange au VisageGrave” (Modigliani: The Sad-FacedAngel). In hindsight, Maufus says, it isclear that everyone involved underesti-mated the complexity of the catalogueraisonné because Ceroni seemed such asolid foundation. “Research always engen-ders more research,” she explains. “MarcRestellini had a lot of enthusiasm for try-ing to pull off both the show and the cata-logue raisonné for 2002. But there was fartoo much work left to do on the catalogue,so I decided to slow down its pace.”

That meant that 30 non-Ceroni workswere being presented to the world withthe imprimatur of Restellini and theWildenstein Institute but without de-tailed provenances or arguments fortheir authenticity. Furthermore, the exhi-bition catalogue deliberately omitted tonote which pictures were in Ceroni’scatalogue; Restellini said he wantedviewers to judge the paintings on their

own merits. “The idea of the Musée de Luxembourg showwas to validate these works based upon our research,” saysMarie-Christine Decroocq, Restellini’s closest collaboratorwithin the Wildenstein Institute. “We have all the details nec-essary to prove their provenances, but we’re holding themback for the catalogue raisonné. Yes, we have every intentionof transparency, but it will come at the time of our choosing.”

Today, many dealers and auction-house specialists suggestthat Restellini would have done better to postpone the exhibi-tion until the catalogue raisonné was ready. “Before that show,people were willing to give Restellini the benefit of thedoubt,” explains one European auction-house specialist. “Butthat exhibition catalogue damaged his reputation.” As thingsstand now, says another auction-house expert, “I can’t imagineanyone serious buying a non-Ceroni piece that Restellini ap-proved unless it had a perfect provenance.”

There’s no guarantee that even a masterful catalogueraisonné by Restellini would quiet the querulous Modiglianimilieu. “I don’t think he was the wrong man for the task,” saysMichael Findlay of New York’s Acquavella Galleries. “But Iguarantee he will have a lot of rocks thrown at him when hisbook finally comes out. When the stakes are so high, venalityruns rife.” n

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This abstract limestone head, ca. 1911–12, reflects Modigliani’s

interest in African sculpture.

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