Lot Essay
Later in life, with most of his friends from his youth then dead or estranged, Picasso embarked upon a series of dialogues with masters from the past, confronting key works of Rembrandt, Velázquez, Delacroix, and Manet. Picasso's treatment of Manet's early masterpiece Déjeuner sur l'herbe inspired no fewer than 27 paintings, 140 drawings, several linocuts and numerous cardboard maquettes. In reinterpreting this critical landmark in the birth of Modernism, Picasso rediscovered and merged many of his favorite themes: the artist and model, bathers on a beach, figures in an idyllic landscape, all highly charged with his distinctly modern and personal treatment of sexuality.