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拍品專文
In 1901 Pablo Picasso left Barcelona for his second stay in Paris. He brought with him several canvases, and within days of his arrival, went to visit Ambroise Vollard’s gallery on the rue Lafitte, which had gained its reputation by supporting artists such as Edgar Degas and Paul Cezanne. By the turn of the century, Vollard had developed a taste for Spanish artists and decided to take a chance on the newcomer by offering Picasso an exhibition. To fill the walls of the space, Picasso set about creating more works to display. The art critic and chronicler of Paris’ social set, Gustave Coquiot, claimed that Picasso painted ten canvases a day; probably, the number was closer to three, which was nevertheless a prodigious feat for the young painter.
The exhibition at Vollard’s featured sixty-five numbered entries of paintings, pastels, and watercolours, as well as a large group of drawings, and in these works Picasso represented a variety of subjects new to his oeuvre including floral bouquets, depictions of children playing, and racecourse scenes, as depicted in the present work, Les courses. Picasso’s friend Pedro Mañach insisted that the artist paint images more palatable to his Parisian audience than the courtesans he had painted during his time in Madrid.
Outings to the horseraces had become a fashionable activity amongst the Parisian bourgeoisie during the latter half of the nineteenth century, and as a result, the exciting spectacle became a subject for those who sought to depict the pleasures of modern life. These were places to see and be seen – veritable fashion shows for those in attendance. The Hippodrome du Longchamp, in the Bois de Boulogne to the west of Paris, was one such site where couturiers outfitted women to serve as walking advertisements for their lavish wares. Both Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas gave image to these races, and in subsequent years, Kees van Dongen and Raoul Dufy, too, depicted the charging horses and the stylish crowd. Picasso, however, only painted the subject during this specific period, and by the autumn of that year, after the initial glow of his success at Vollard’s had begun to dim, he began to tackle more sombre subjects, inaugurating what would become his Blue period.
The outfits shown in Les courses are striking. The three women are bedecked in frills, ruffles, and opulent embroidery. Clouds of frothy white pool at their ankles and each woman’s head is topped by a lavish, layered hat outfitted with rosettes and feather plumes. The three protagonists seem to be engaged in a gossipy dispute, their faces pulled into fierce expressions. Picasso’s colour palette was similarly fanciful and brighter than the works he had done in Spain the previous winter. Forms were no longer so sharply outlined and colour was used to define contour. The outlandish ensembles resemble exotic birds and there is an element of fantasy at play, an effect heightened by the artist’s virtuosic handling of paint and ebullient brushwork.
Whether Picasso ever actually attended any of the horseraces at nearby Auteuil or Longchamp remains unknown. Besides being very busy with preparations for the exhibition at Vollard’s, he lacked the resources to mingle with the beau monde. The finery depicted in Les courses resembles that seen in his Madrid paintings from earlier that year, including Femme en bleu, now in the collection of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid (Zervos, vol. 21, no. 211). In this painting, Picasso dressed his protagonist in a late-nineteenth century iteration of an eighteenth century dress, complete with an enormous bow. These compositions were not rooted in real life, but rather drawn from memories of the Parisian demimonde that had so entranced him during his first visit to the city in 1900 as well as works by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. While the clothing depicted in Les courses may have taken inspiration from real life – it is possible that Picasso followed reportage from the races in which writers waxed eloquent about the fashions on display – likely it was invented.
There is some debate as to whether the present work was included in the Vollard exhibition as the catalogue only recorded works by title and several fit the theme of the races. Pierre Daix made a considerable effort to identify the paintings and included Les courses in his list. Picasso recalled later that the Vollard exhibition ‘went very well. It pleased a lot of people’ and the reviews were favourable (quoted in J. Richardson, A Life of Picasso, Volume I: 1881-1906, London, 1991, p. 199). More than half the works sold, a great accomplishment for an artist in badly need of a financial boost. It was also a succès d’estime. In the prestigious Revue Blanche, Félicien Fagus called Picasso a ‘brilliant newcomer’, writing, ‘He is the painter, utterly and beautifully the painter; he has the power of divining the essence of things…Like all pure painters he adores colour for its own sake…he is enamoured of all subjects, and every subject is his…’ (quoted in ibid.).
The first owner of this painting, was Emmanuel Virenque, the Spanish consul in Paris, who then passed it to his daughter, Roseanne, who likely held onto the painting until her death in 1976. He had acquired the painting Au Moulin Rouge (Le divan japonais) (Zervos, vol. 1, no. 69) from Picasso but later exchanged it for the present work. Virenque also owned Les arènes de Barcelone, now in the collection of the Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art & Design (Zervos, vol. 21, no. 145), and Pierrot et danseuse (Zervos, vol. 21, no. 224; Private collection).
This work has been requested for a future exhibition, Barcelona 1900: From Gaudí to Picasso, to be held next year at the Kunsthalle Munich, from October 2026 to February 2027, and at Museum Barberini, Potsdam, from March to June 2027.
The exhibition at Vollard’s featured sixty-five numbered entries of paintings, pastels, and watercolours, as well as a large group of drawings, and in these works Picasso represented a variety of subjects new to his oeuvre including floral bouquets, depictions of children playing, and racecourse scenes, as depicted in the present work, Les courses. Picasso’s friend Pedro Mañach insisted that the artist paint images more palatable to his Parisian audience than the courtesans he had painted during his time in Madrid.
Outings to the horseraces had become a fashionable activity amongst the Parisian bourgeoisie during the latter half of the nineteenth century, and as a result, the exciting spectacle became a subject for those who sought to depict the pleasures of modern life. These were places to see and be seen – veritable fashion shows for those in attendance. The Hippodrome du Longchamp, in the Bois de Boulogne to the west of Paris, was one such site where couturiers outfitted women to serve as walking advertisements for their lavish wares. Both Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas gave image to these races, and in subsequent years, Kees van Dongen and Raoul Dufy, too, depicted the charging horses and the stylish crowd. Picasso, however, only painted the subject during this specific period, and by the autumn of that year, after the initial glow of his success at Vollard’s had begun to dim, he began to tackle more sombre subjects, inaugurating what would become his Blue period.
The outfits shown in Les courses are striking. The three women are bedecked in frills, ruffles, and opulent embroidery. Clouds of frothy white pool at their ankles and each woman’s head is topped by a lavish, layered hat outfitted with rosettes and feather plumes. The three protagonists seem to be engaged in a gossipy dispute, their faces pulled into fierce expressions. Picasso’s colour palette was similarly fanciful and brighter than the works he had done in Spain the previous winter. Forms were no longer so sharply outlined and colour was used to define contour. The outlandish ensembles resemble exotic birds and there is an element of fantasy at play, an effect heightened by the artist’s virtuosic handling of paint and ebullient brushwork.
Whether Picasso ever actually attended any of the horseraces at nearby Auteuil or Longchamp remains unknown. Besides being very busy with preparations for the exhibition at Vollard’s, he lacked the resources to mingle with the beau monde. The finery depicted in Les courses resembles that seen in his Madrid paintings from earlier that year, including Femme en bleu, now in the collection of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid (Zervos, vol. 21, no. 211). In this painting, Picasso dressed his protagonist in a late-nineteenth century iteration of an eighteenth century dress, complete with an enormous bow. These compositions were not rooted in real life, but rather drawn from memories of the Parisian demimonde that had so entranced him during his first visit to the city in 1900 as well as works by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. While the clothing depicted in Les courses may have taken inspiration from real life – it is possible that Picasso followed reportage from the races in which writers waxed eloquent about the fashions on display – likely it was invented.
There is some debate as to whether the present work was included in the Vollard exhibition as the catalogue only recorded works by title and several fit the theme of the races. Pierre Daix made a considerable effort to identify the paintings and included Les courses in his list. Picasso recalled later that the Vollard exhibition ‘went very well. It pleased a lot of people’ and the reviews were favourable (quoted in J. Richardson, A Life of Picasso, Volume I: 1881-1906, London, 1991, p. 199). More than half the works sold, a great accomplishment for an artist in badly need of a financial boost. It was also a succès d’estime. In the prestigious Revue Blanche, Félicien Fagus called Picasso a ‘brilliant newcomer’, writing, ‘He is the painter, utterly and beautifully the painter; he has the power of divining the essence of things…Like all pure painters he adores colour for its own sake…he is enamoured of all subjects, and every subject is his…’ (quoted in ibid.).
The first owner of this painting, was Emmanuel Virenque, the Spanish consul in Paris, who then passed it to his daughter, Roseanne, who likely held onto the painting until her death in 1976. He had acquired the painting Au Moulin Rouge (Le divan japonais) (Zervos, vol. 1, no. 69) from Picasso but later exchanged it for the present work. Virenque also owned Les arènes de Barcelone, now in the collection of the Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art & Design (Zervos, vol. 21, no. 145), and Pierrot et danseuse (Zervos, vol. 21, no. 224; Private collection).
This work has been requested for a future exhibition, Barcelona 1900: From Gaudí to Picasso, to be held next year at the Kunsthalle Munich, from October 2026 to February 2027, and at Museum Barberini, Potsdam, from March to June 2027.