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拍品專文
This work is sold with a photo certificate from the Comité Picasso, signed 'Claude Picasso' and 'P. Ruiz Picasso' and dated 13 décembre 1988.
Filled with movement and romance, Couple espagnol shows one of the Spanish vignettes that really launched Picasso's career. Dating from the formative stage of his artistic development, when he was mixing, and emerging from, the influences of many cutting edge artists, Couple espagnol appears to bear the traces of his first visit to Paris in the deft and confident handling of the scene: the lines and the subject matter appear to owe much to Steinlen and Toulouse-Lautrec especially. This picture recalls scenes such as Picasso's own Moulin de la Galette in its verve and execution, while the theme is resolutely Spanish. All this combines to imply that, as John Richardson suggests in his authoritative life of Picasso, that Couple espagnol dates from his 1901 return to Spain.
Picasso's first trip to Paris had not been a resounding success, unlike the imminent second journey to Paris, which would be marked by his hugely successful first Parisian exhibition at Ambroise Vollard. However, Picasso did secure a monthly stipend from Pere Mañach which gave him some comfort, as well as the kudos of quick and profitable sales, not least to Berthe Weill. Returning to Spain, Picasso captured Spanish life in all its incarnations. Alongside the bullfighting scenes that helped establish his early reputation, scenes of Spaniards in their element and dress were popular, while they also fascinated the patriotic artist. The image of the Spanish couple appeared in several works from 1899 onwards, not least an oil painted on a tambourine from that year, and a 1900 oil of a Spanish couple in the Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art in Japan. In Couple espagnol, Picasso still signs with his full name, yet already the work has far more assurance than these other treatments of the same subject. In Couple espagnol, the style of the man hints either at the artist's nostalgia for the South, or possibly means that the picture was created during his brief stay at Málaga just before he went to Madrid; however, even when established in Madrid, Picasso's pictures revisited scenes from all the places he had recently visited in Spain, including Barcelona and Toledo, creating a body of work that distilled the artist's fascination for his homeland while showcasing his ever-increasing virtuosity.
Filled with movement and romance, Couple espagnol shows one of the Spanish vignettes that really launched Picasso's career. Dating from the formative stage of his artistic development, when he was mixing, and emerging from, the influences of many cutting edge artists, Couple espagnol appears to bear the traces of his first visit to Paris in the deft and confident handling of the scene: the lines and the subject matter appear to owe much to Steinlen and Toulouse-Lautrec especially. This picture recalls scenes such as Picasso's own Moulin de la Galette in its verve and execution, while the theme is resolutely Spanish. All this combines to imply that, as John Richardson suggests in his authoritative life of Picasso, that Couple espagnol dates from his 1901 return to Spain.
Picasso's first trip to Paris had not been a resounding success, unlike the imminent second journey to Paris, which would be marked by his hugely successful first Parisian exhibition at Ambroise Vollard. However, Picasso did secure a monthly stipend from Pere Mañach which gave him some comfort, as well as the kudos of quick and profitable sales, not least to Berthe Weill. Returning to Spain, Picasso captured Spanish life in all its incarnations. Alongside the bullfighting scenes that helped establish his early reputation, scenes of Spaniards in their element and dress were popular, while they also fascinated the patriotic artist. The image of the Spanish couple appeared in several works from 1899 onwards, not least an oil painted on a tambourine from that year, and a 1900 oil of a Spanish couple in the Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art in Japan. In Couple espagnol, Picasso still signs with his full name, yet already the work has far more assurance than these other treatments of the same subject. In Couple espagnol, the style of the man hints either at the artist's nostalgia for the South, or possibly means that the picture was created during his brief stay at Málaga just before he went to Madrid; however, even when established in Madrid, Picasso's pictures revisited scenes from all the places he had recently visited in Spain, including Barcelona and Toledo, creating a body of work that distilled the artist's fascination for his homeland while showcasing his ever-increasing virtuosity.