I purchased additional Soutine landscapes and read all I could about his life and his fellow artists—and soon added a portrait by his best friend, Amedeo Modigliani. The portrait was of Leon Indenbaum, the French-Russian sculptor. I had become good friends with a Parisian dealer on the Left Bank, and one day he sent me a photograph of this portrait. I immediately cabled him to reserve it, as I was leaving a few days later for Amsterdam where I was to spend three days before continuing on to Paris. However, about a half hour before the ship made its stop at Le Havre, I suddenly decided that I just couldn't wait the week's time it would take to travel through the Low Countries before reaching Paris. So I left the boat at Le Havre, and telephoned my dealer friend. Only when he told me he had physical possession of the portrait did I relax. Several days later I had the pleasure of meeting the sitter, Leon Indenbaum, who was now close to sixty and very happy to see the portrait again. He hadn't seen it for some twenty years. He excitedly explained how it came about.

One night, Modigliani, while rather drunk, saw Indenbaum at a cafe and said he would like to paint his portrait, if Indenbaum would furnish a canvas and an easel to work on. The following morning at nine, Modigliani arrived, spruced up and ready to get to work. Indenbaum had various canvases of paintings by contemporary artists at his atelier. They had been returned, unsold and unclaimed, from a sale for a charitable fund. After turning down several of these canvases because he thought the paintings were too good to spoil, Modigliani found a still-life that he thought could be sacrificed, so he scraped off the heavy paint and commenced.

After three morning sittings of about four hours each, the portrait was finished, and presented to Indenbaum. On looking at it carefully one can see the table and bottle that were part of the original still-life. Several weeks later, Indenbaum, being short of money, sold his portrait for forty francs (eight dollars). When he finally explained to Modigliani that he was forced to sell it, Modigliani said, "That's all right, I'll do it again." However, this never happened.