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Case file s133 · Literature and art · 1920
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1920
Amedeo Modigliani: Amedeo Modigliani in his studio
Amedeo Modigliani. French art dealer Paul Guillaume (1891–1934). Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
24 January 1920
Place
Paris · France
Field
painter, sculptor · Visual art and architecture on the timeline
Legal tradition
French and Italian law; Italian criminal law on forgery · Civil law
Historical event
École de Paris; post-1918 art market
Religion
Amedeo Modigliani: Jewish (recorded as 20th-century Italian Jews, 20th-century Sephardi Jews, Italian Sephardi Jews on Wikipedia)
Literature and artForged and faked willsWorld warsEuropeFrance

Modigliani died poor, his partner jumped from a window the next day, and Italian police later closed a Modigliani show for fakes

Amedeo Modigliani died of tubercular meningitis at 35†. The next day his pregnant partner, Jeanne Hébuterne, jumped from her parents' apartment window†. Their infant daughter was raised by Modigliani's family in Italy†. Prices for his work rose after his death, and so did forgeries. In 2010 a French court convicted Christian Parisot, who ran a Modigliani archive, of fraud for falsely authenticating 77 drawings and watercolours attributed to Hébuterne; he received a two-year suspended sentence. Rival catalogues of Modigliani's work disagree: Marc Restellini's planned catalogue had 415 works, 78 more than Ambrogio Ceroni's, and museums and auction houses still prefer Ceroni. In July 2017 police seized 21 paintings from an exhibition at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa after the collector Carlo Pepi raised doubts. Fifteen were attributed to Modigliani. Experts concluded 20 of the 21 were forgeries, and the show closed three days early. Prosecutors named the president of the organiser MondoMostre Skira, the curator and a lending dealer as suspects, then three more people in 2019. All said they were innocent. No final verdict has been confirmed†.

What the law took from it

An artist who dies without a catalogue or a family archive leaves authentication to rival scholars, and forgers fill the gap.

Sources
  1. itsartlaw.orgPress
  2. Artnet NewsPress
  3. finestresullarte.infoPress
  4. gazette-drouot.comPress
  5. artreview.comPress

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “Modigliani died poor, his partner jumped from a window the next day, and Italian police later closed a Modigliani show for fakes,” story s133, https://www.celebrity.estate/modigliani-1920, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

Literature and artForged and faked willsWorld warsEuropeCivil lawFrance