- 114
Pablo Picasso
Description
- Pablo Picasso
- Saltimbanque et jeune fille
- Signed Picasso (lower left)
- Watercolor and charcoal on paper laid down on card
- 11 5/8 by 7 3/4 in.
- 29.5 by 19.5 cm
Provenance
Justin K. Thannhauser, Munich, Berlin, Paris, New York and Bern, (no. 40164) (acquired from the above before 1925)
Mrs. Justin K. Tannhauser, Bern (by descent and sold: Christie's, New York, November 19, 1998, lot 543)
Exhibited
Washington D.C., The National Gallery of Art, Picasso, The Saltimbanques, 1980-1981, no. 46b, p. 88, illustrated p. 90
Barcelona, Museu Picasso, and Bern, Kunstmuseum, Picasso, 1905-1906: From the Rose Period to the Ochres of Gósol, 1992, no. 213, illustrated, p. 350
Munich, Haus der Kunst, Pierrot: Melancholie und Maske, 1995, no. 59, illustrated, p. 136
Literature
Christian Zervos, Picasso: Supplément aux volumes 1 à 5, vol. 6, Paris, 1954, no. 697, illustrated pl. 85
Pierre Daix et Georges Boudaille, The Blue and Rose Periods: A Catalogue raisonné of the Paintings, 1900-1906, Greenwich, Connecticut, 1967, no. D.XII.19, illustrated p. 271
Pierre Daix, Tout l'Oeuvre peint de Picasso, périodes bleue et rose, Paris, 1968, no.188, illustrated p. 102
Catalogue Note
The intimate and melancholic scene that Picasso depicts in the current work depicts several figures that are singular to this period of the artist's career, referred to as the Rose Period. One of the most individual and distinctive series from Picasso's oeuvre, this period gave rise to some of the most important masterpieces of the artist's career. After the ineffable melancholic atmosphere of his Blue Period, the Rose Period marked a notable shift in Picasso's art. Executed in the first stages of this period in 1905, Saltimbanque et jeune fille provides a rare glimpse into the profound artistic sensibility of this artistic g💛enius.
The male figure which dominates this scene appears in many of Picasso's works from this period (Fig. 1). Josep Palau i Fabre describes the appearance of this figure in the oeuvre of Picasso: "The second avalanche of characters in the Pink Period, with a specific personality that distinguished them quite clearly from the previous ones, is that of the circus acrobats. And their irruption is even more tumultuous than that of the harlequins or the traveling acrobats. It may be supposed that their appearance on the scene coincides with one of Picasso's visits to the Cirque Medrano, where he went both to see the show and to observe the acrobats in their life out of the ring.... what we see in these works is, in effect, a family or clan of eleven people, ranging from an old woman to a child in swaddling clothes and revolving around a strong, corpulent man who presides over the whole group" (Josep Palau i Fabre, Picasso, The Early Years, 1881-1907, Paris, 1981, pp. 412-13).
Figure 1 Pablo Picasso, Les acrobates, 1905, oil on canvas, N🀅ational Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Chester Dale Collection