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Lot Essay
A study for the oil painting of the same title (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Mellon Collection), Arlequin cheval is a classic image from Picasso's Rose Period.
Picasso's Rose Period has also been called the 'Apollinaire period', because of the profound influence that the poet had upon Picasso at this time. The artist's numerous depictions of Les Saltimbiques and of other wandering artists and circus performers between 1905 and 1906, were often directly inspired by Apollinaire's poems, yet central to all these scenes is the basic conceit of a tribe of nomadic artists marooned in a desert wilderness.
For Picasso, who adored the circus and identified with such performers, Les Saltimbiques were true artists. They were wanderers who, like himself - an emigrant from Spain - travelled through strange lands pursuing their art. By the early years of the twentieth century, moreover, they were also evidently a dying breed and Picasso's depictions of these wandering artists seldom fail to convey a sense of the tragi-comic.
The key tragi-comic figure is Harlequin who plays a central role in Picasso's art during this period. Picasso readily identified with this figure and incorporated him into his work as an allegorical self-portrait on a number of occasions and in an increasingly wide variety of situations.
Although entitled Arlequin cheval, the present watercolour in fact depicts a jester on horseback. The figure of the jester developed from Harlequin. A similar character in many respects, the jester is distinguished by his crown-like hat which, Slavic in origin, lends a comic sense of grandeur to the figure. The jester ultimately developed in Picasso's art into a wizened old man.
Picasso's Rose Period has also been called the 'Apollinaire period', because of the profound influence that the poet had upon Picasso at this time. The artist's numerous depictions of Les Saltimbiques and of other wandering artists and circus performers between 1905 and 1906, were often directly inspired by Apollinaire's poems, yet central to all these scenes is the basic conceit of a tribe of nomadic artists marooned in a desert wilderness.
For Picasso, who adored the circus and identified with such performers, Les Saltimbiques were true artists. They were wanderers who, like himself - an emigrant from Spain - travelled through strange lands pursuing their art. By the early years of the twentieth century, moreover, they were also evidently a dying breed and Picasso's depictions of these wandering artists seldom fail to convey a sense of the tragi-comic.
The key tragi-comic figure is Harlequin who plays a central role in Picasso's art during this period. Picasso readily identified with this figure and incorporated him into his work as an allegorical self-portrait on a number of occasions and in an increasingly wide variety of situations.
Although entitled Arlequin cheval, the present watercolour in fact depicts a jester on horseback. The figure of the jester developed from Harlequin. A similar character in many respects, the jester is distinguished by his crown-like hat which, Slavic in origin, lends a comic sense of grandeur to the figure. The jester ultimately developed in Picasso's art into a wizened old man.