Portrait of Jeanne Hébuterne
Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia
Jeanne Hébuterne was nineteen, an art student at the Académie Colarossi, when the sculptor Chana Orloff introduced her to Modigliani in the spring of 1917[1]. She came from a conservative Catholic family who disowned her over the relationship, seeing Modigliani, thirty-three, unwell and known for drink and drugs, as no match for their daughter[1]. She moved in with him anyway and became his most painted subject, sitting for more than twenty portraits between 1917 and 1920[2]. This picture shows her in profile, her hair swept up into a tight, cone-like shape that echoes the crowns worn by Egyptian statues, a comparison that has become the standard way of describing it. It was painted in 1918, the year Modigliani, Hébuterne and their unborn first child left wartime Paris for the south of France, first Nice and then Cagnes-sur-Mer, where their daughter, also named Jeanne, was born on 29 November 1918[1]. Hébuterne was pregnant again within months of returning to Paris in 1919. Modigliani died of tubercular meningitis on 24 January 1920; the following morning, eight months pregnant, she threw herself from her parents' fifth-floor window and died with their unborn second child[1].
Where it is held
Held at Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, United States.
Held today by the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia. Modigliani painted this profile portrait of Hébuterne in 1918, during the couple's stay on the Côte d'Azur, one of more than twenty portraits he made of her between 1917 and his death in 1920.
An art student, not a professional model
Hébuterne was not one of the professional models Modigliani painted alongside his portraits of friends and patrons. She had trained as a painter herself at the Académie Colarossi, the same Montparnasse school where Modigliani had studied a decade earlier, and her brother André was also a painter[1]. Her family's rejection of the relationship was total: devout Catholics, they saw Modigliani as a debauched vagabond and renounced her for staying with him[1]. She stayed regardless, and by July 1917 the couple had rented a joint studio at 8, rue de la Grande-Chaumière[2]. Being a working artist herself may explain why Modigliani's paintings of her feel less like formal sittings and more like a record of daily proximity, someone who understood what he was doing and posed for it repeatedly, in profile, seated, in a yellow sweater, in whatever light the room offered that day.
The move south, 1918
Early in 1918, with the war still grinding on and Paris under threat from German shelling, Modigliani and Hébuterne travelled south to Nice and then Cagnes-sur-Mer[3]. Their circle there was startlingly well-connected for a group of near-penniless painters: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Pablo Picasso, Giorgio de Chirico and André Derain were all around at various points[3]. Zborowski, Modigliani's dealer, arranged for local people to sit for him, and Modigliani's palette shifted under the influence of the dry, strong southern light and his growing interest in Cézanne[3]. He found the light difficult to work with and missed his Paris friends, and was keen to get back to the capital, which the couple did at the end of May 1919[3]. This profile portrait belongs to that stretch on the Côte d'Azur, made while Hébuterne was carrying their first child and Modigliani was working through a genuine, if uncomfortable, change in his painting.
The pose: profile and the Egyptian comparison
Modigliani painted Hébuterne in profile more than once, her hair drawn up into a rounded, compact shape that has repeatedly reminded viewers of the crowns on ancient Egyptian statuary. The comparison fits a wider pattern in his late work: elongated necks, flattened almond eyes, and faces reduced to a small number of curved planes, a vocabulary he had built first as a sculptor working under the influence of Brancusi and African art before the war forced him back to paint[2]. Applied to Hébuterne, that vocabulary produces something closer to an icon than a likeness, a face held at a slight remove even as the sitter was, by every account, the person closest to him in his final years.
Common questions
How old was Jeanne Hébuterne when she met Modigliani?
Nineteen. She was an art student at the Académie Colarossi, introduced to Modigliani by the sculptor Chana Orloff in the spring of 1917[1].
Why does her hair look like a crown in this portrait?
Modigliani drew it into a tight, rounded shape that recalls the crowns of ancient Egyptian statuary, part of the reduced, mask-like vocabulary he applied to most of his late portraits[2].
Why did Modigliani and Hébuterne move to the south of France in 1918?
Wartime conditions in Paris; the couple travelled to Nice and then Cagnes-sur-Mer, where their daughter was born that November[3].
How did Jeanne Hébuterne die?
She took her own life the morning after Modigliani's death in January 1920, eight months pregnant with their second child[1].
Sources
Editorial draws on the following references, verified against the museum and public-domain image record for this work.
- [1] book Amedeo Modigliani, Delphi Complete Paintings of Amedeo Modigliani (Illustrated) (Delphi Masters of Art Book 27) Used for: this artwork.
- [2] book Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Jeanne Hébuterne with Yellow Sweater (Solomon R. Guggenheim collection catalogue) Used for: this artwork.
- [3] book Amedeo Modigliani, Seated Boy with Cap (Delphi Complete Paintings of Amedeo Modigliani) Used for: this artwork.
Editorial overseen by Solis Prints. Sources verified 2026-09-03. Click a source for details, or hover over [N] in the page above to preview.
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