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Lot Essay
La Couseuse (The Seamstress) is a charmingly intimate portrait of Picasso's fiance Fernande Olivier that was painted by the artist between the late summer and the early autumn of 1906. Executed in the soft pastel shades that characterise Picasso's work during what has often been referred to as his "flesh period", La Couseuse is one of the very last of Picasso's 'rose period' paintings as well as a particularly tender and lovingly crafted portrait of his mistress.
Douglas Gordon suggested in 1957 that, like Picasso's two masterpieces of this period Composition: les paysans and his famous Portrait of Gertrude Stein, the present work was executed in Paris immediately after Picasso's return from his summer visit to Spain. However, Picasso's handling of the style, colour, and technique of the painting as well as the straightforward intimacy of the work suggests that like Composition: les paysans, La Couseuse belongs alongside the remarkable group of paintings that Picasso executed in the Catalan village of Gsol in the Pyrenees where he had spent a most enjoyable ten weeks during the summer of 1906.
In May 1906, Ambrose Vollard had re-entered Picasso's life after a notable period of absence and purchased twenty paintings from the artist for a price of 2,000 francs. Flush with the cash, Picasso resolved for the first time in over two years to return to his native Spain over the summer. Accompanied by his fiance Fernande Olivier, Picasso returned in style to his old friends in Barcelona. In excellent spirits and filled with the self-confidence of a local boy who had gone to Paris and made good, Picasso revelled in being back in his native land. Fernande wrote that, "the atmosphere of his own country was essential to him and gave him... special inspiration." "The Picasso I saw in Spain", she continued, "was completely different from the Paris Picasso; he was gay, less wild, more brilliant and lively and able to interest himself in things in a calmer, more balanced fashion; at ease in fact. He radiated happiness....." (Fernande Olivier cited in J. Richardson, A Life of Picasso, London 1991 p. 436)
On the advice of his friend Enric Casonovas, Picasso decided to spend much of the summer in the small Catalan village of Gsol in the Pyrenees. The rustic peace and calm of this ancient village was evidently condusive for Picasso and encouraged him to branch out in new directions with his art. He also painted at a prolific rate, achieving as much in the ten weeks or so that he spent in Gsol as he had in the whole previous six months.
Characterised by a predominant use of pink and other pastel shades of colour, the Gsol works reflect Picasso's new-found sensitivity to the inherent beauty in the simplicity and ordinariness of everday life. Picasso also appears to have fallen more deeply in love with Fernande at this time and portraits of her dominate his work of this period. Even when Picasso paints some of the local girls or works of a strictly allegorical nature, it is often Fernande's features that break through in his work and characterise the numerous female figures in his paintings of this period.
La Couseuse is one of the most clearly identifiable portraits of Fernande - a delicate and sensitive portrait of his mistress sewing with a warm smile of contentment upon her face. The gentle hues of Picasso's pastel palette enhance the sense of contentment conveyed by her smiling features and conjur an atmosphere of the domestic bliss which Picasso revelled with Fernande at this time.
One of the very last of the 'rose period' pictures to be painted. The smooth surface and simplified lines that Picasso uses to capture Fernande's features hint at the dramatic direction his art would take in the ensuing months. Influenced by the Iberian art that Picasso had come into contact with once again during his summer in Spain, the simplified features of Fernande's face anticipate the style Picasso began to employ in his Portrait of Gertrud Stein and in his Self Portrait with a Palette and which ultimately culminated in 1907 in Les Demosielles d'Avignon.
Douglas Gordon suggested in 1957 that, like Picasso's two masterpieces of this period Composition: les paysans and his famous Portrait of Gertrude Stein, the present work was executed in Paris immediately after Picasso's return from his summer visit to Spain. However, Picasso's handling of the style, colour, and technique of the painting as well as the straightforward intimacy of the work suggests that like Composition: les paysans, La Couseuse belongs alongside the remarkable group of paintings that Picasso executed in the Catalan village of Gsol in the Pyrenees where he had spent a most enjoyable ten weeks during the summer of 1906.
In May 1906, Ambrose Vollard had re-entered Picasso's life after a notable period of absence and purchased twenty paintings from the artist for a price of 2,000 francs. Flush with the cash, Picasso resolved for the first time in over two years to return to his native Spain over the summer. Accompanied by his fiance Fernande Olivier, Picasso returned in style to his old friends in Barcelona. In excellent spirits and filled with the self-confidence of a local boy who had gone to Paris and made good, Picasso revelled in being back in his native land. Fernande wrote that, "the atmosphere of his own country was essential to him and gave him... special inspiration." "The Picasso I saw in Spain", she continued, "was completely different from the Paris Picasso; he was gay, less wild, more brilliant and lively and able to interest himself in things in a calmer, more balanced fashion; at ease in fact. He radiated happiness....." (Fernande Olivier cited in J. Richardson, A Life of Picasso, London 1991 p. 436)
On the advice of his friend Enric Casonovas, Picasso decided to spend much of the summer in the small Catalan village of Gsol in the Pyrenees. The rustic peace and calm of this ancient village was evidently condusive for Picasso and encouraged him to branch out in new directions with his art. He also painted at a prolific rate, achieving as much in the ten weeks or so that he spent in Gsol as he had in the whole previous six months.
Characterised by a predominant use of pink and other pastel shades of colour, the Gsol works reflect Picasso's new-found sensitivity to the inherent beauty in the simplicity and ordinariness of everday life. Picasso also appears to have fallen more deeply in love with Fernande at this time and portraits of her dominate his work of this period. Even when Picasso paints some of the local girls or works of a strictly allegorical nature, it is often Fernande's features that break through in his work and characterise the numerous female figures in his paintings of this period.
La Couseuse is one of the most clearly identifiable portraits of Fernande - a delicate and sensitive portrait of his mistress sewing with a warm smile of contentment upon her face. The gentle hues of Picasso's pastel palette enhance the sense of contentment conveyed by her smiling features and conjur an atmosphere of the domestic bliss which Picasso revelled with Fernande at this time.
One of the very last of the 'rose period' pictures to be painted. The smooth surface and simplified lines that Picasso uses to capture Fernande's features hint at the dramatic direction his art would take in the ensuing months. Influenced by the Iberian art that Picasso had come into contact with once again during his summer in Spain, the simplified features of Fernande's face anticipate the style Picasso began to employ in his Portrait of Gertrud Stein and in his Self Portrait with a Palette and which ultimately culminated in 1907 in Les Demosielles d'Avignon.