Private Collection, Germany
Thence by descent (and sold: Sotheby's, London, Feburary 6, 2014, lot 451)
Acquired at the above sale

Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, Oeuvres de 1959 à 1961, vol. XIX, Paris, 1968, no. 305, illustrated pl. 96
The Picasso Project, ed., Picasso’s Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings and Sculpture, The Sixties, 1960-1963, San Francisco, 2010, cat. nos. 60-187, illustrated p. 69

This work is in very good condition. Executed on cream wove paper. Affixed to the mount with adhesive at five places around the perimeter of the verso. The right and bottom edges of the sheet are deckled. There is a minor quarter-inch repair to the bottom left corner. There are a few natural inclusions in the lower center.
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.

"What I would like," Picasso said, "is to paint a bull fight as it is.  I would like to paint it as I see it. I would like to paint everything.  I would need a canvas as large as the arenas.  It is a shame I cannot do this, it would be magnificent... [In] this canvas, I have been thinking about it for a long time and there is nothing preventing me from some day finding the means to do it" (Helene Parmelin, Picasso dit, Paris, 1966, pp. 49-50).

At the age of eight, Picasso was taken to the bullfighting ring by his fat🏅her. This experience certainly had a strong impression on the boy, as bullfighting was later to become one of his most important subjects.  He returned to it at various stages of his career in different guises, from the minotaur of Picasso's Surrealist phase, through the war time drama of Guernica to the colorful, highly ornamented matadors of the artist's last  years.  Thro🐓ughout his career, a fervent fan of this sensually graceful, powerful spectacle, Picasso came back to the theme and obsessively explored and developed it.

Work after work illustrates every aspect of the spectacle and is infused with a tragic intensity. As Jean Claude Lambert comments: "Each time they are, these Faenas, these moves, a new challenge of light; and Picasso achieves the speed limit for drawing.  From a conflict of forces, from an explosion like the charge of a bull against the picador and his steed, or the unpredictable cogida, when the man is snatched up by the animal, raising an anguished swell of protest, Picasso creates a page of calligrams, little snippets of violence captured in its paroxysm, but by no means abated.  Picasso's black is swifter than the reds of the muletas.  One could even say it precedes it.  Like a torero raising his banderiallas aloft, Picasso goes straight to the essential" (Jean-Claude Lambert, Picasso: Dessins de Tauromachie 1917-1960 (exhibition catalogue), Paris, 1960).