The short lives of Modigliani and his dealers

In 1977, the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris became the owner of one of the most valuable collections of modern art in Europe. This had already been on display there for eleven years, and it was only on the death of Domenica Walter (1898-1977) that ownership passed to the French nation. It has long been rumoured that this was all part of a deal to cover up the suspicious deaths of Domenica’s two husbands, Jean Walter, who died in 1957 after being hit by a car, and art dealer Paul Guillaume, who died in 1934 from an “ulcer”. There was also the matter of a claimed attempt on her son’s life.

Paul Guillaume was one of two dealers who had encouraged and supported Amedeo Modigliani, who died tragically at the age of thirty-five. His partner threw herself to her death from a fifth-floor window just two days later, at the…