A Girl in a Yellow Dress

Modigliani painted this in Paris in 1917, in the middle of the war, when he had largely given up sculpture and was turning out portrait after portrait of the people around him in Montparnasse. The girl sits with her hands folded, in a yellow dress with a small lace collar, her face pared down to his familiar long oval, the eyes left almost blank. He was not painting society sitters. His models were friends, lovers and neighbours, whoever would sit for a few francs or a drink. He had three years left to live when he made this.