Berggruen Collection, Paris (acquired by 1954)
Countess Seidenburg, New York
Erich Leinsdorf, Amsterdam
Saidenberg Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above in the late 1980s

New York, Marlborough Gallery & Saidenberg Gallery, Homage to Picasso, 1971, n.n. (titled Guitare et partition)

Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, Supplement aux volumes I à V, vol. VI, Paris, 1954, no. 1390, illustrated p. 165
The Picasso Project, ed., Picasso's Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings and Sculpture, Neoclassicism I, 1920-1921, San Francisco, 1995, no. 20-241, illustrated p. 75

Executed on cream wove paper not laid down. The sheet is hinged to the mount at the upper two corners. The edges are slightly irregular and there is a minor paper loss to the lower right corner (not visible when framed). Some light time staining to the sheet most notable along the extreme perimeter. A few scattered faint spots of foxing. Remnants of old framers tape along the verso of the edges. Very minor flattened creased in white pigment of upper left quadrant, otherwise fine. This work is in overall very good condition.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

As Picasso once stated, “There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterwards you can remove all traces of reality. There’s no danger then, anyway, because the idea of the object will have left an indelible mark. It is what started the artist off, excited his ideas, and stirred up his emotions. Ideas and emotions will in the end be prisoners in his work. Whatever they do, they can’t escape from the picture. They form an integral part of it, even when their presence is no longer discernible” (quoted in Christian Zervos, “Conversation avec Picasso,” in Cahiers d’Art, Paris, 1935, p. 176). 

In 1920, Picasso was hired to design costumes and sets for the ballet Pulcinella. Concurrently, he created a series of still lifes featuring items, such as mandolins, guitars, bowls of fruit and pedestal tables. The present composition epitomizes Picasso’s work of the early 1920s. While the objects are still abstracted in form, Picasso has rendered them with clear legibility, easily identified by the viewer. Douglas Cooper has commented that “Picasso was hoping to find for himself a workable equation of values between Cubist reality, visual reality, and the accepted pictorial reality created by the eye-fooling methods of naturalism” (Douglas Cooper, The Cubist Epoch, London, 1994, p. 211). 

The present work once held a prominent position in the collection of Austrian-born American conductor, Erich Leinsdorf. Leinsdorf studied condu🍒cting at University of Vienna and the Vienna Academy of Music. Leaving for America just weeks before the invasion of Vienna in 1938, Leinsdorf found his way to New York City and became the assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera at only twenty-five years of age. He served as the principle conductor at different points in his life for the Cleveland Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra and New York Philharmonic.