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Lot Essay
Maya Widmaier-Picasso has kindly confirmed the authenticity of this work.
There is a rare simplicity and fineness of composition and execution in Jeune femme au café courtisée par un pierrot (L'Offrande) that appears almost reminiscent of prints rather than drawings. Many of Picasso's other drawings from this period have a sketchiness, each appearing as a study filled with pentimenti, whereas this work is a highly finished object, its inking of a calligraphic nature that appears to show some indebtedness to Aubrey Beardsley rather than any of Picasso's contemporaries in Paris or Barcelona. This style and sense of finish only featured in a few of Picasso's works from this restless time in the artist's life.
Jeune femme au café courtisée par un pierrot (L'Offrande) has been dated to 1903, when Picasso returned to Barcelona after an unsuccessful trip to Paris in which he failed to reproduce the success of his 1901 visit and his exhibition at Vollard's. Picasso was at the height of his Blue Period, and his poverty in Paris, followed closely by his yearning to return there once he was back in Spain, reinforced this, inspiring some of his most poignant works. However, in Jeune femme au café courtisée par un pierrot (L'Offrande) Picasso has reprised the café culture themes that he had explored with such success in his pre-Blue Period works. Here, while the theme appears lighthearted and romantic, with the Pierrot offering the lady a flower, the stylisation of the characters, with their elongated limbs, their arching postures and the woman's huddled position, is wholly in tune with his Blue Period. The woman in particular does not appear as glamourous as her hat would suggest, but is hunched as though cold. She smiles lightly at the accepted offering, but somehow the interaction between the characters appears in fact to recall his famous painting La Soupe, in which there is an implication of necessity and poverty. Although the woman in Jeune femme au café courtisée par un pierrot (L'Offrande) appears to be a 'type', a stock Blue Period character, the Pierrot has about his certain echoes of Picasso's own frequent self-portraits of the time, perhaps hinting at some event in his own life. Likewise, the provenance of Jeune femme au café courtisée par un pierrot (L'Offrande) is a reflection of Picasso's life at this time - it was owned by his great friend, the poet and occasional artist Max Jacob, with whom Picasso had lived in Paris for some time in 1902. It was then acquired from him by Picasso's famous dealer, Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler, to whom so much of Picasso's success was later owed. It was later part of the colletion of Roger Dutilleul, one of France's most important collectors, whose array of masterpieces formed a large part of the prestigious Musée d'Art Moderne de Villeneuve-d'Ascq.
There is a rare simplicity and fineness of composition and execution in Jeune femme au café courtisée par un pierrot (L'Offrande) that appears almost reminiscent of prints rather than drawings. Many of Picasso's other drawings from this period have a sketchiness, each appearing as a study filled with pentimenti, whereas this work is a highly finished object, its inking of a calligraphic nature that appears to show some indebtedness to Aubrey Beardsley rather than any of Picasso's contemporaries in Paris or Barcelona. This style and sense of finish only featured in a few of Picasso's works from this restless time in the artist's life.
Jeune femme au café courtisée par un pierrot (L'Offrande) has been dated to 1903, when Picasso returned to Barcelona after an unsuccessful trip to Paris in which he failed to reproduce the success of his 1901 visit and his exhibition at Vollard's. Picasso was at the height of his Blue Period, and his poverty in Paris, followed closely by his yearning to return there once he was back in Spain, reinforced this, inspiring some of his most poignant works. However, in Jeune femme au café courtisée par un pierrot (L'Offrande) Picasso has reprised the café culture themes that he had explored with such success in his pre-Blue Period works. Here, while the theme appears lighthearted and romantic, with the Pierrot offering the lady a flower, the stylisation of the characters, with their elongated limbs, their arching postures and the woman's huddled position, is wholly in tune with his Blue Period. The woman in particular does not appear as glamourous as her hat would suggest, but is hunched as though cold. She smiles lightly at the accepted offering, but somehow the interaction between the characters appears in fact to recall his famous painting La Soupe, in which there is an implication of necessity and poverty. Although the woman in Jeune femme au café courtisée par un pierrot (L'Offrande) appears to be a 'type', a stock Blue Period character, the Pierrot has about his certain echoes of Picasso's own frequent self-portraits of the time, perhaps hinting at some event in his own life. Likewise, the provenance of Jeune femme au café courtisée par un pierrot (L'Offrande) is a reflection of Picasso's life at this time - it was owned by his great friend, the poet and occasional artist Max Jacob, with whom Picasso had lived in Paris for some time in 1902. It was then acquired from him by Picasso's famous dealer, Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler, to whom so much of Picasso's success was later owed. It was later part of the colletion of Roger Dutilleul, one of France's most important collectors, whose array of masterpieces formed a large part of the prestigious Musée d'Art Moderne de Villeneuve-d'Ascq.