When selecting the present picture for the Tate Gallery Modigliani exhibition of 1963, John Russell considered it one of the first truly successful portraits of a female sitter that Modigliani had painted. Russell wrote that it is a picture which, "demonstrated the monumentality which Modigliani could achieve when he combined the flawless ovals of sculpture with eyes no longer sightless...This painting keeps an exemplary balance between the stylization of the head and neck and the individual living presence of the sitter; and the rectilinear background which looks so casual, has a formal function as precisely calculated as that of the picture-frames in Poussin's self-portrait in the Louvre." (Modigliani, London, 1963, pp. 7, 19).
Having met and come under the influence of Brancusi in 1909, Modigliani concentrated for the next four years on sculpture to the virtual exclusion of paintings. It was a vital period which was to determine the mature portrait style of the final years of his short life. "Brancusi's simplifications, and his ferocious exclusion of the irrelevant, made sense in the context of Modigliani's experience of older art. Brancusi taught him, in short, that it was possible both to be dans le progrès and to draw upon that immense repertory of simplified and meaningful forms which he had built up in Italy." This stylisation, initially inspired by Brancusi, became the distinctive feature of Modigliani's "late" work.

Jeanne Modigliani wrote, "La ligne et, avec elle, la fameuse déformation (notons à ce propos que si Modigliani avait une prédilection pour les modèles à l'ovale allongé, ou au cou de cygne, il accentuait aussi leurs volumes sphèriques); la ligne de Modigliani n'a pas de function autonome, mais, au contraire, dans ces oeuvres les plus réussies, elle n'est qu'un lien dialectique entre surface et profondeur. D'une analyse qui s'applique parfaitement au portrait de jeune femme, de l'ancienne collection Gualino [the present picture], Venturi ecrivait: 'Le Visage, presque de face, est composé de manière que la partie supérieure suit une direction qui, d'un point avancé au sommet de la tête, recule jusqu'au milieu du visage, alors que la partie inférieure du visage suit une direction opposée et, de l'arrière, affleure au premier plan. C'est-à-dire que le visage, qui apparaissait d'abord étalé en surface, suivant en profondeur deux directions opposées, suggérant ainsi la prise de possession de l'espace en profoundeur" ("Modigliani sans Légende", in Modigliani, Fondation Gianadda, Martigny, 1990, p. 60).

The identity of the young girl in this portrait is not known. However, Modigliani was reluctant to use professional models, unless his dealer Zborowski (the first owner of the present work) paid for them. It was the young girls he met by chance on the Montmartre streets where he lived that became his lively and inexpensive source of sitters. Carol Mann writes, "He preferred girls who came from outside his world, who would accept him at face value, without questions or criticism: housemaids, waitresses, milkmaids, whose opulent health contrasted with his own" (Modigliani, London, 1980, p. 174). Modigliani always worked from the life, needing the actual physical presence of his subject. He told his friend, the artist Leopold Survage, "Pour travailler, j'ai besoin d'un être vivant, de le voir devant moi."

Sitting for Modigliani was a somewhat unnerving experience as he worked with extraordinary rapidity and a violent intensity. Lipchitz recounts how Modigliani set about the portrait of his wife and himself: "quand il arriva il executa, les unes après les autres, plusieurs esquisses préliminaires avec sa rapidité et sa précision habituelles...Le jour suivant Modigliani arriva à une heure avec une vieille toile et sa boîte de couleurs; la séance commence, je le vois encore, assis devant sa toile qu'il avait posée sur une chaise. Il ne s'interrompait que pour saisir de temps en temps la bouteille posée à ses côtes et boire une gorgée. Il se levait parfois, regardait son oeuvre d'un oeil critique et la comparait aux modèles. A la fin de la journée il déclara "Voilà, je crois, que j'ai fini." It is fascinating that such a working procedure could lead to the production of such serene and complete portraits. The present picture nevertheless retains an indefinable sense of psychological intangibility, leaving the viewer to guess at the thoughts in this young girl's head. Nella Ponente termed this picture "uno dei piu noti ritratti di Modigliani...Ma la preziosità dell'opera è soprattuto nella finissima gradazioné cromatica, dei rossi ombreggiati e scuriti e pure vivi per una loro luce interiore." (Modigliani, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, 1959).