Main avec manche

Details

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
Main avec manche
numbered and stamped with foundry mark '2/10 C. VALSUANI CIRE PERDUE' (on the underside)
bronze with brown patina
Length: 9 3/8 in. (24 cm.)
Conceived in 1947; this bronze version cast in 1948-1954

Provenance

Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris.

Literature

D.H. Kahnweiler, The Sculptures of Picasso, London, 1949, pl. 216 (another cast illustrated).
W. Spies, Picasso das plastische Werk, Düsseldorf, 1983, p. 386, no. 338 (another cast illustrated, p. 346).
W. Spies, Picasso, The Sculptures, New York, 2000, p. 408, no. 338 (another cast illustrated, p. 367).
The Picasso Project, ed., Picasso's Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings and Sculpture: Liberation and Post-War Years 1944-1949, San Francisco, 2000, p. 194, no. 47-072 (another cast illustrated).

Sale room notice

Claude Picasso has confirmed the authenticity of this sculpture.

Lot Essay

This sculpture very likely depicts the artist's own right hand, with which he painted and drew. The hand is loosely clenched in a way similar to that seen in Picasso's famous Portrait de l'artiste, painted in autumn, 1906 (Zervos, vol. 1, no. 375; coll. The Philadelphia Museum of Art), in which he holds a palette with his other hand. The straightforward, matter-of-fact manner in which Picasso has rendered his hand, signifies its inherent strength and potential, as well as being a gesture of friendship. Picasso also modeled a left hand on two occasions during this period, both titled Main, the first in 1949, and the second in 1950 (Spies, nos. 340 and 348, respectively).

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