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Lot Essay
Maya Widmaier-Picasso has kindly confirmed the authenticity of this work.
In Picasso's late years many of his drawings pursued themes that recur concurrently in his etchings. With either pen and ink or the etcher's stylus in hand the artist worked in a relatively small and intimate scale, and never hesitated to show off the virtuosity of his supremely refined and unerring line. His most frequent theme is the brothel, where young and voluptuous women lounge nude before the gaze of anonymous elderly clients. The long-nosed bearded gentleman is usually Edgar Degas, whose brothel monotypes were the chief inspiration for these drawings. Half in, half out of the composition, he leers wide-eyed but unnoticed. Watching him, and surveying the entire scene from a vantage point even further removed, as if through a keyhole or a crack in the door, is a second older man, bald and rounder faced, Picasso himself.
In Picasso's late years many of his drawings pursued themes that recur concurrently in his etchings. With either pen and ink or the etcher's stylus in hand the artist worked in a relatively small and intimate scale, and never hesitated to show off the virtuosity of his supremely refined and unerring line. His most frequent theme is the brothel, where young and voluptuous women lounge nude before the gaze of anonymous elderly clients. The long-nosed bearded gentleman is usually Edgar Degas, whose brothel monotypes were the chief inspiration for these drawings. Half in, half out of the composition, he leers wide-eyed but unnoticed. Watching him, and surveying the entire scene from a vantage point even further removed, as if through a keyhole or a crack in the door, is a second older man, bald and rounder faced, Picasso himself.