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Lot Essay
Dated to the fall of 1904, the present painting--which originally formed the cover of a sketchbook--bears witness to a critical moment in Picasso's development, both personal and professional. In April, the twenty-three-year old artist, who had already made three visits to Paris, left Barcelona and settled once again in the French capital, this time for good. He rented a squalid studio in Montmartre in the now-legendary Bateau Lavoir, a favorite residence for avant-garde artists and poets, named by Max Jacob for its resemblance to a rickety washing barge. Over the remainder of the year, Picasso created "an altogether remarkable series of works," characterized by "a melancholy poetry, increasingly dense and touching" (P. Daix and G. Boudaille, Picasso, The Blue and Rose Periods: A Catalogue Raisonné, 1900-1906, New York, 1967, p. 238). Little by little, the blue light that had permeated Picasso's paintings for the past two years began to lose its chill, moving first toward a luminous gray heightened with blush tones and finally deepening to a ruddy pink, the Blue Period blurring into the Rose Period.
Many of Picasso's paintings from the summer of 1904 through the early months of 1905 depict the various women whom the young artist took as lovers at the Bateau-Lavoir. Foremost among them was a model named Madeleine, whose boyishly lean body, bird-like features, and loose chignon re-appear throughout this period, often in profile such as in the haunting portrait of Madeleine in the collection of the Tate, Jeune femme en chemise, circa 1905 (fig. 1; Zervos, I, no. 307). Picasso was also involved with two other "sulky-looking gamines" who shared Madeleine's angular bone structure, somewhat androgynous physique, and distinctive pout: Margot Luc, whose father Frédé owned the celebrated Lapin Agile cabaret, and Alice Géry, who would later marry André Derain (J. Richardson, A Life of Picasso, New York, 1996, vol. I, p. 343). Any of these women--or, more likely, an amalgam of their physiognomies and identities--may have provided the inspiration for the present painting, with its exquisite layering of pink tones. Finally, in August 1904, Picasso began an affair with Fernande Olivier, who would become the first great love of his life. Her image, however, would not come to dominate his art until early 1906, partly out of discretion (Fernande was living with a sculptor, and Madeleine had just found out that she was pregnant) and partly because her voluptuous looks did not correspond to the delicate, etiolated aesthetic that characterizes Picasso's work of 1904-1905.
(fig. 1) Pablo Picasso, Jeune femme en chemise, circa 1905. Tate Liverpool.
Many of Picasso's paintings from the summer of 1904 through the early months of 1905 depict the various women whom the young artist took as lovers at the Bateau-Lavoir. Foremost among them was a model named Madeleine, whose boyishly lean body, bird-like features, and loose chignon re-appear throughout this period, often in profile such as in the haunting portrait of Madeleine in the collection of the Tate, Jeune femme en chemise, circa 1905 (fig. 1; Zervos, I, no. 307). Picasso was also involved with two other "sulky-looking gamines" who shared Madeleine's angular bone structure, somewhat androgynous physique, and distinctive pout: Margot Luc, whose father Frédé owned the celebrated Lapin Agile cabaret, and Alice Géry, who would later marry André Derain (J. Richardson, A Life of Picasso, New York, 1996, vol. I, p. 343). Any of these women--or, more likely, an amalgam of their physiognomies and identities--may have provided the inspiration for the present painting, with its exquisite layering of pink tones. Finally, in August 1904, Picasso began an affair with Fernande Olivier, who would become the first great love of his life. Her image, however, would not come to dominate his art until early 1906, partly out of discretion (Fernande was living with a sculptor, and Madeleine had just found out that she was pregnant) and partly because her voluptuous looks did not correspond to the delicate, etiolated aesthetic that characterizes Picasso's work of 1904-1905.
(fig. 1) Pablo Picasso, Jeune femme en chemise, circa 1905. Tate Liverpool.