Modigliani [antikvár]

In the year 1906, at the age of twenty-two, Amedeo Modigliani arrived in Paris from his native Leghorn. With his brand-new widebrimmed hat, loosely-knotted red scarf and velvet jacket, he was the typical well-to-do young man dressed up as a painter; and he wore this romantically artistic get-up with the same ill-concealed pride as a newly-promoted lieutenant parades in his first dress uniform. Within six months all trace of this pride had disappeared. The fine costume, transplanted from the banks of the Arno to those of the Seine, had lost all its childish ostentation and the fresh lips of its wearer had become set in a bittér line-Paris had not yet broken him, but it had already destroyed his illusions. His first friends-as is often the case with those whose days are numbered-were from the outset those who were to count in his life, the poets and painters who were destined to change the face of art and existence in his generation: Apollinaire, Picasso and Max Jacob. But they listened with a smile on their lips as their young companion discoursed with enthusiasm on Dante, Michael Angelo and Raphael, for