Young Girl with a Striped Blouse

By 1917 Modigliani had given up the sculpture he loved. Carving stone threw off dust his tuberculosis could not take, and wartime Paris had made the stone itself hard to come by, so he turned back to paint and brought the sculptor's habits with him. You can see them here in the long oval of the girl's face, the neck drawn out like a column, the features pared down to a few sure lines. She is nobody famous, one of the anonymous young sitters he found around Montparnasse, given a dark tie, a striped blouse, and that heavy-lidded, faraway look he lent almost everyone. He worked fast and cheaply in these years, trading portraits like this one for meals and drinks in the cafés.