Gimpel & Hanover Galerie, Zurich
Fuji Television Co., Ltd., Tokyo
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, Oeuvres de 1932 à 1937, vol. VIII, Paris, 1957, no. 73, illustrated p. 32

Executed on cream-colored laid paper which has not been laid down. The edges are deckled. There are very minor spots of foxing to the upper right quadrant. There is a minor spot of skinning to the paper in the upper left quadrant near the top edge. There is a very minor tear to the paper at the upper half of the left edge. The paper is lightly time faded commensurate with age. There is a light stain along the right edge due to old tape coming through from the verso. The medium is fresh and strong. The 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.

Shortly after his fiftieth birthday, Pablo Picasso’s lover at the time, Marie-Thérèse Walter, nearly drowned while kayaking on the river Marne, and this distressing accident served as a source of inspiration for the present work. Executed in the fall of 1932, Le Sauvetage belongs to a series of drawings and paintings that illustrate the episode, but the artist took considerable liberties in its retelling. The drawing gives central focus to a dramatic image of a drowned woman being rescued, her figure embellished by an erotic sensuousness, and Picasso heightens the fear and crisis of the scene through the tension of the energetic yet restrained sketching.

In his most recent biography on the artist, John Richardson discusses Picasso's approach to these compositions and how they were colored by his own fears and desires: “He transposes the accident from the icy, rat-infested river to a sunny beach, where he envisions Marie-Thérèse being saved from drowning by her sisters or alternate versions of herself. She looks inert—maybe alive, maybe dead. The pathos of these images is tinged with eroticism. The drowned girls—eyes closed, head thrown back, breasts thrust up—swoons erotically in the arms of one of her alter egos, while others dive, swim and play ball, just as they did at Dinard in 1928” (John Richardson, A Life of Picasso, The Triumphant Years, 1917-1932, New York, 2007, pp. 487-88).