Tête de femme à la couronne de fleurs

At first glance Picasso's Tête de femme à la couronne de fleurs appears as a two-dimensional painting or print, but it is in fact a slab of terracotta clay carved in shallow relief to mimic a tooled wood or lino plate. In his series of plaques, the planar images manipulate sculptural effects to create graphic sinuous lines in both positive and negative form. Closely related to a series of linogravures the artist produced in the early sixties, the work clearly represents the heart-shaped face of Jacqueline Roque, whose visage came to dominate Picasso's work in the late 1950s. The plaque unites Picasso's love of the ceramic medium with his passion for Jacqueline, whom he met in 1954 when she worked as an assistant to Suzanne Ramié, the co-founder of the Madoura pottery in Vallauris. By 1964, Picasso had been married to the striking brunette for three years, living and working at his villa Notre-Dame-de-Vie at Mougins and sending endless experimentations with ceramics to nearby Vallauris for firing. In Tête de femme à la couronne de fleurs, the wide-eyed portrait of Jacqueline shows her flowing hair encircled with a garland of flowers, lending her the appearance of Flora, the goddess of fertility and of Spring. In this way, Picasso not only presents a loving tribute to the beauty of his young wife, but a universal image of hope and rebirth that represents his fascination for classical mythological and symbolism.