H. Vinès, Paris

Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, Supplément aux volumes 1 à 5, vol. VI, no. 347, illustrated p. 43
Josep Palau i Fabre, Picasso, The Early Years, 1881-1907, Ediciones Polígrafa, Barcelona, 1985, no. 517🎃, illustrated p. 214

Executed on cream wove paper. Affixed to a mount at all four corners. Left edge is deckled. Sheet is time darkened overall. There is a faint mat stain around perimeter, thickest on left edge (about 1 cm). Colors are fresh. Work is in very good condition.
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In October of 1900, both Pablo Picasso and his close friend Carles Casagemas left Barcelona for Paris in order to see the conclusion of the Exposition Universelle, where Picasso had a painting on view in the Spanish Pavillion.  The two painters quickly met up with other Catalan artists, found living quarters in Montmartre, set about to paint and, if fortune would permit, sell their work.  Their Parisian sojourn was short-lived, however, and the two artists soon ran out of funds.  Josep Palu i Fabre observes that during this time, "It was this deplorable state of affairs that persuaded Picasso to return to Barcelona a day or two before Christmas.  During the stay in Paris of just over two months, Picasso's work seems to have undergone an evolution that took it from light to shade, from vivid polychromy to nocturnal hues, from the open air to closed spaces" (J. Palau i Fabre, Picasso, The Early Years, 1881-1907, Polígrafa, Barcelona, 1985, p. 207).

A fortnight after their return to Spain, Picasso urged his brooding friend to accompany him to Málaga in an effort to cheer him.  Casagemas' mood was soured by the absence of his lover and muse, Germaine (née Laure Gargallo), whom he met shortly after arriving in Paris.  To h🔥is dismay, Germaine rebuffed his demand for her to leave her husband and marry him, instead.  Longing to see her again, the forlorn Casagemas returned to Paris in February of 19🌃01.  Shortly after his arrival, however, Casagemas attempted to shoot Germaine in public view with friends while dining at the Hippodrome and turned his gun on himself.

The suicide of Carles Casagemas had a profound impact on the cadre of Catalan ex-patriots w𒁃ho were working togehter in Paris at that time.  Nonetheless, no one was more devastated by this news than Picasso, his closest friend, who was in Madrid at the time.  Picasso's sullen mood was quickly reflected by his artistic output resulting in the so-called Blue Period.  

Gustave Coquiot wrote of Picasso's work in the fall of 1901 , "Tomorrow we are asked to admire a collection of paintings and drawings by Pablo Ruiz Picasso in the Vollard Gallery.  This very young Spanish painter, who has been here for only a short time, is wildly enamored of modern life.  It is easy to imagine him - wide awake, with a searching eye, keen to record everything happening in the street, all the adventures of life...  All too often an artist attracted by just two or three aspects of our times is described as portraying Modern Life, but P.R. Picasso deserves this description more than anybody else.  From our own time he has taken prostitutes, country scenes, street scenes, interiors, workers and so on, and we can be sure that tomorrow he will offer us everthing else that he has not been able to attain up to now... " Coquiot continues, "But this is not all, ...expressive drawings speak eloquently of the tenderness in a gesture, of forgotten beggars in the city, of silent, amorphous gatherings of people...  We shall be hearing more of the work of P.R. Picasso (Gustave Coquiot, Le Journal, Paris, June 17, 1901).

Executed in 1901, the present work was most likely drawn while Picasso was traveling in either Toledo or Madrid.  It was during this time and in an earlier trip in the Spanish countryside that Picasso witnessed the plight of the worker and other outcast🧸s including beggars, prostitutes and other disenfranchisedꦯ members of society.

Fig. 1 Pablo Picasso, Old Man in Toledo, Pencil and wat𒁏ercolor, 1901, Musée de B🦩eaux Arts, Rheims