小农夫

This is one of a small group of paintings of youths by Modigliani. The artist inscribed the work's title on the bottom right of the canvas , identifying the sitter as a 'peasant boy'. However, the same model appears in a painting in the collection of the Louvre, Paris, titled 'The Young Apprentice'. Modigliani had long been deeply influenced by the painter Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), and it seems likely that this painting was a homage to the latter's series of country workers posed centrally in the canvas and painted in predominantly blue tones . (See, for example, Cézanne's 'The Gardener Vallier', also in this room.)