Modigliani's mature portraits, painted chiefly between 1916 and 1919, share a consistent set of features regardless of who sat for them: long curved necks, flat oval faces, empty almond-shaped eyes, small pursed mouths, and a diagonal tilt to the head^[1]. Madame Reynouard's portrait follows this vocabulary closely. What sets many of these paintings apart from each other is not style but the presence or absence of documentation about the sitter. Modigliani painted people close to his dealer Zborowski, fellow artists, café acquaintances, and, in the south of France, local people arranged for him to paint through his dealer's connections^[3]. Not all of them left a trace beyond a surname on a canvas, and Madame Reynouard is one of these. It was Modigliani's practice to work directly on the canvas, completing a portrait in a single sitting rather than through preparatory studies, which meant a sitter's visit could be brief and leave no separate record^[2].

The single-sitting method documented for Modigliani's portraits from this period meant that a sitter needed only to be available once, not to enter into a longer arrangement with the artist^[2]. This suited the loose, itinerant character of Montparnasse itself, where models, neighbours and passing acquaintances could be pressed into service for an afternoon. It also explains why so many of Modigliani's sitters from these years carry only a first name, a surname, or a generic title such as young woman or seated girl rather than a full identity: the portraits were made quickly, for reasons that were often practical rather than commemorative, and few of the sitters had any reason to expect their names would be preserved alongside the paintings for the century that followed.