Estate of the artist
Marina Picasso, France (by descent from the above)
Jan Krugier, Geneva (acquired from the above)
Acquired from the above by the present owner

The ceramic is sound. The work is in excellent original 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.

Picasso’s Andalusian roots lent the artist an innate interest in ceramics, a medium that enabled Picasso to combine painting, sculpture and engraving for both utilitarian and artistic purposes. In 1946 Picasso moved to the liberated Antibes, where the sea, sky, food and colors reminded him of his homeland, now under Franco rule and impossible for him to return to. Instead, Picasso and his family settled at the villa La Galloise in Vallauris, where Picasso rediscovered modeled clay, terracotta and ceramics. “From these materials,” Pablo’s grandson Bernard Ruiz-Picasso writes, “which were open to a rich variety of transformation, Picasso was to create with great freedom, often reworking existing forms that lent themselves to the play of interpretation” (Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, “The Painter of Forms” in Ceramics by Picasso, Paris, 1999, p. 8).

Throughout his career Picasso concurrently worked in a variety of media, but now in his sixties, Picasso added to his already expansive technical oeuvre by procuring tiles and jugs to be re-purpose as artistic surfaces and modeling clay to produce innovative sculptural forms. The seriality of Picasso’s artistic method in conjunction with the historically booming ceramics industry in Vallauris created an atmosphere of continual production and invention. As the scholar Marilyn McCully reflects, “Pottery always had a special significance for Picasso by virtue of its direct links through materials, techniques and forms to ancient Mediterranean tradition. When he took up ceramics, he imbued his work with subjects that reflect a preoccupation not only with mythological characters but also with the concept of metamorphosis: pots are turned into women, jugs into birds or bulls, and plates into fish. In the ancient myths (retold in Ovid’s Metamorphoses), the Gods were able not only to change their own form to carry out their seductions, but also to give immortality to moral creatures by transforming them. Likewise, Picasso, who saw his powers of creation as God-like, was able to transform ordinary objects into art” (Marilyn McCully, “Ceramics and the Côte d’Azur” in ibid., p. 33).