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Lot Essay
In Pablo Picasso’s 1919 drawing, Femme nue allongée et coiffée d’un turban, a statuesque nude woman reclines across a divan bed. Propped up on her elbow, her cheek rests against her palm as she gazes dreamily beyond the viewer, her expression tranquil and wistful. Soft coils of hair peek out from underneath her headdress, which flows down over her shoulder as she toys with the rippling fabric. Femme nue allongée et coiffée d’un turban illustrates Picasso’s masterful draughtsmanship, as his meticulous lines of cross-hatching endow the female figure with a rich physicality and sensuality.
In both his subject matter and his neoclassical, naturalistic style, Picasso paid homage to the celebrated French painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, recalling in particular the artist’s 1814 painting, La grande odalisque. Picasso was well-acquainted with Ingres’s orientalist-inspired masterpiece, which had been on display at the Musée du Louvre since 1899. In January 1907, the composition had been exhibited beside Édouard Manet’s Olympia, sparking a renewed bout of intrigue surrounding both works. In the present work, Picasso’s eponymous nude figure sports a turban-style headdress, a direct reference to Ingres’s composition which is intensified by their similar recumbent postures. Well-versed in the Western art historical canon, Picasso had always been greatly influenced by the art of his predecessors, and Femme nue allongée et coiffée d’un turban elucidates Picasso’s transition into his so-called ‘Neoclassical period.’ Following the First World War, the rappel à l’ordre coursed through Paris, as artists shifted away from the radical experimentation of the avant-garde, instead embracing classical motifs and traditional subject matter. Additionally, Picasso’s 1917 travels to Italy, where he had been enraptured by the works of the Old Masters, such as Raphael and Michelangelo, acted as a catalyst for his interest in more classical styles of figuration.
In both his subject matter and his neoclassical, naturalistic style, Picasso paid homage to the celebrated French painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, recalling in particular the artist’s 1814 painting, La grande odalisque. Picasso was well-acquainted with Ingres’s orientalist-inspired masterpiece, which had been on display at the Musée du Louvre since 1899. In January 1907, the composition had been exhibited beside Édouard Manet’s Olympia, sparking a renewed bout of intrigue surrounding both works. In the present work, Picasso’s eponymous nude figure sports a turban-style headdress, a direct reference to Ingres’s composition which is intensified by their similar recumbent postures. Well-versed in the Western art historical canon, Picasso had always been greatly influenced by the art of his predecessors, and Femme nue allongée et coiffée d’un turban elucidates Picasso’s transition into his so-called ‘Neoclassical period.’ Following the First World War, the rappel à l’ordre coursed through Paris, as artists shifted away from the radical experimentation of the avant-garde, instead embracing classical motifs and traditional subject matter. Additionally, Picasso’s 1917 travels to Italy, where he had been enraptured by the works of the Old Masters, such as Raphael and Michelangelo, acted as a catalyst for his interest in more classical styles of figuration.