Modigliani left his native Italy for Paris in 1908, settling in the bohemian Left Bank neighborhood of Montparnasse. There he mingled with French artists and writers, developing the style that would grant him immortality–and the drinking problem that would cause his premature death. With elegantly distorted proportions and blank, staring eyes, this portrait is in certain respects typical of Modigliani’s approach. Its attribution to the artist, however, was long debated. The composition is close to that of another picture: a half-length portrait of the Polish emigré painter Pierre-Edouard Baranowski today in a private collection. Marked differences in the application of paint in these two works, and the fact that the present picture is painted on an unusual hardboard support, led many experts to believe that this portrait was a copy–or, indeed, a fake–made from the other. Recent technical study, however, has confirmed that Modigliani was indeed the author of this portrait. It is painted over an abandoned composition by the same artist belonging to his celebrated Caryatid series.