Details
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

La Cafetière bleue (Cafetière et Tasse)

signed upper left Picasso; dated on the reverse 3 Avril 44, oil on canvas
24 x 15in. (61 x 38.1cm.)

Painted on 3 April 1944
Provenance
Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris (02282, ph. no. 853)
Literature
C. Zervos, Pablo Picasso, vol. 13, Oeuvres de 1943 et 1944, Paris, 1962, no. 247 (illustrated p. 122)
Exhibited
Stockholm, Liljevachs Konsthall, Fran Cézanne till Picasso, Sept. 1954, no. 281
Humbleback, Louisiana Museum for Moderne Kunst, Picasso, Sept.-Nov. 1968, no. 58

Lot Essay

Besides executing many portraits of Dora Maar, Picasso also painted a large number of fine still-lives in the spring of 1944. Amongst them is a series incorporating a cafetière as the central element. In seven days, from 2-8 April, Picasso executed ten such paintings. The first of these, painted the day before the present picture, was also with Louise Leiris and appeared in the Liljevachs Konsthall exhibition in 1954. Sold in these rooms on 29th November 1982 (lot 41) the painting depicts the same coffee pot on a tall table accompanied by a glass vase and apple (Zervos, XIII, no. 250). Painted in rather dark colours, the present work is a much brighter version of the subject and shows Picasso moving towards the spectacularly bright still-life of 8 April entitled Cafetière et Chandelier, now in the Musée Nationale d'Art Moderne, Paris. The cafetière and coffee cup here serve as the focal point for the composition of the later picture.

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