Lot Essay
In 1953, when Picasso was working in Mourlot's atelier, he noticed a zinc plate in the corner, waiting to be polished out. It was for a photolithographic poster to the 1948 exhibition, La Peinture lyonnaise, at the Tuilleries Orangerie, Paris, featuring a painting by Victor Orsel. Picasso reworked the plate into a new composition, sporting a cast of Arcadian figures hovering about the darkly outlined Italian woman.