Roma Woman with Baby

Amedeo Modigliani, 1919

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Artist: Amedeo Modigliani (Italian, 1884–1920)
Medium: oil on canvas
Size: overall: 115.9 x 73 cm (45 5/8 x 28 3/4 in.); framed: 134.6 x 93.3 x 9.5 cm (53 x 36 3/4 x 3 3/4 in.)
Museum: National Gallery of Art
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

Shown from the knees up, a woman with peach-colored skin and dark hair sits facing us and holding a baby in this stylized, vertical portrait painting. The woman’s features are elongated and simplified, and the nearly geometric forms are outlined with gray. Loose brushstrokes are visible throughout, creating a textured, mottled effect. The woman’s long, thin face comes to a point at her chin, and her brown hair is pulled back on either side of her forehead.

She has pale blue eyes, an exaggeratedly long nose, noticeably flushed cheeks, and her coral-pink, bow lips are closed. Her white blouse has a wide, tomato-red, squared collar that lies over her shoulders, and a thin, light blue scarf drapes around her neck and down her chest. Her long, full skirt is blended shades of violet purple and sky blue.

The woman’s hands are clasped around a baby wrapped in a navy-blue blanket. The baby’s head is covered with a long pink cap with black and white bands at each end. The woman casts a narrow shadow against the gray wall behind her. Bands of elephant gray, black, and brown behind her across the bottom of the composition suggest an abstracted bench or seat she sits on. The artist signed the work in dark letters near the upper left corner: “Modigliani.”