In November 1971, the photographer Brassaï visited Picasso at his home at Mougins, Notre Dame de Vie.  It was Picasso’s 90^th birthday, and Brassaï, who had met Picasso in 1932 and photographed much of his sculpture during the 1930s and 40s, wrote, “Such a flowering of creative energy would be astonishing enough in a man who has already lived longer than many of the great artists of history, but in Picasso’s case there is an even more astonishing factor: Instead of bringing with it a slackening of his physical ardour, his great age seems only to stir up the demons within and heighten the intensity of his erotic imaginings” (quoted in the introduction by John Richardson & Marilyn McCully in Sotheby’s sale of Pablo Picasso: 26 Drawings from the Berggruen Sketchbook, London, 2005, p. 7).

Picasso began to use sketchbooks during the 1890s and produced over 175 throughout his career.  These sketchbooks recorded the artist’s ideas and inspirations and reflected both his personal thoughts as well as his artistic process.  The present drawing comes from a sketchbook Picasso executed in 1971 and depicts a reclining nude, probably his wife at the time, Jacqueline.  Rendering her with strong, sensual lines accentuated with deep red crayon, Picasso emphasizes her wavy hair, long eyelashes and full breasts. Traces of lines from the previous page of the sketchbook are also faintly visible, imbuing Femme et fleur with a sense of immediacy and intimacy.
  
Gert Schiff writes about the works from the end of Picasso’s career, “To the last, he poured all his impassioned humanity into his art.  Thus, his last works teach us something that cannot be deduced from the more detached works of other giants in their old age.  By pushing the limits of our self-awareness a little further, Picasso undermines our moral complacency in the name of his own honest and fearless humanism.  Quite often, he does so with disarming naivete and exquisite humor.  For all of these reasons, his last period has a special place within his development.  It is not a ‘swan song’ but the apotheosis of his career (Picasso, The Last Years, 1963-1973 (exhibition catalogue) Gray Art Gallery & Stud🥃y Center, New York University, New Yo♒rk, pp. 11-12).

Fig. 1, A pen and ink sketch by Pablo Picasso on a photograph of the artist by Edward Quinn, Villa La Californie, Ca𝄹nnes, 1956.