La judía

Modigliani had come to Paris from Livorno in 1906, a young Italian Jew looking for a way into modern art, and by 1908 he had almost nothing to show for it. This was the picture he chose to put forward, the first he exhibited in the city, at the Salon des Independants. The famous long-necked mask of a face is not here yet. The mood leans instead on Picasso's recently finished blue period, all cool, mournful colour, an artist Modigliani both admired and resented. What is striking is the title. He could have passed easily as a gentile in a France still raw from the Dreyfus affair, and instead he labelled his debut The Jewess. It is the only portrait he ever gave that name. The sitter's identity is uncertain, painted in the same smoky blues he borrowed for the whole canvas.