Boy in a Striped Sweater

In the spring of 1918 the Germans were shelling Paris with long-range guns, and Modigliani, whose lungs were already failing, went south with his dealer to the warmth of Nice and the villages around it. Away from the Montparnasse cafes and their poets, he found new sitters: the local children, servant girls and peasants of the Riviera. This boy in his striped sweater is one of them, a child whose name went unrecorded, given the same long oval face and quiet, almost solemn stillness Modigliani gave everyone. He had less than two years left to live when he painted it.