Artwork
Boy in a Striped Sweater
Boy in a Striped Sweater is an oil painting by Amedeo Modigliani. It dates from 1918 and is held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
Rendered in oil on canvas, the image emphasizes the boy's quiet presence through the contrast between the striped sweater and the surrounding blue tones.
Boy in a Striped Sweater is a half-length seated portrait of a young boy positioned before a blue background. The sitter is dressed in navy blue and wears a horizontally striped top, the garment that gives the painting its name. As a portrait rather than a narrative or allegorical composition, the work does not carry an explicit symbolic program; its meaning resides in the direct, intimate depiction of the child as an individual subject.
The painting belongs to a broader series of child portraits Modigliani produced in the final years of his career, in which he applied his signature elongated forms and simplified facial features to young sitters. Rendered in oil on canvas, the image emphasizes the boy's quiet presence through the contrast between the striped sweater and the surrounding blue tones.
Technique & Style
Executed in 1918, Boy in a Striped Sweater is an oil painting on canvas. The work presents a half-length portrait of a seated boy positioned against a solid blue background. The subject wears a dark blue garment featuring distinct horizontal stripes, which provides the title for the piece.
The composition measures 91.4 cm in height and 54.6 cm in width. Stylistically, the painting adheres to Modigliani's portraiture genre, depicting the figure in a seated pose on a chair.
History & Provenance
Boy in a Striped Sweater is an oil on canvas portrait painted by Amedeo Modigliani in 1918. The work measures 91.4 cm by 54.6 cm. After its creation, the painting entered the collection of Jacques Gelman, who later transferred it to Paul Guillaume before it was bequeathed by Natasha Gelman to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1998. The piece has been exhibited as part of the Twentieth‑Century Modern Masters show drawn from the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection.
Boy in a Striped Sweater is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It entered the museum's collection in 1998 as a bequest from Natasha Gelman, having previously passed through the hands of the dealer Paul Guillaume and been owned by Jacques Gelman.
The painting has been exhibited as part of "Twentieth-Century Modern Masters: The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection," a presentation tied to the Gelman holdings from which the work was bequeathed to the museum.
Overview
Amedeo Modigliani's Boy in a Striped Sweater, an oil painting from 1918, presents a portrait of a young individual. This work exemplifies the artist's distinctive approach to figurative subjects, which he developed during his time in Paris. It forms part of a series of portraits created in the final years of his career, reflecting his consistent engagement with the human form and his unique stylistic language.
Context
Created in 1918, this portrait emerged from Modigliani's prolific period in Paris, where he had settled in 1906 and became associated with the École de Paris. His distinctive style, marked by elongated figures and faces, evolved from his early studies of Italian Renaissance art and classical antiquity. Boy in a Striped Sweater is representative of the numerous portraits he produced, which collectively define his modernist contribution to figurative painting.
Artist & collection
Artist
Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (US: ; Italian: ; 12 July 1884 – 24 January 1920) was an Italian painter and sculptor of the École de Paris who worked mainly in France.
