Oct 29, 2019 - Sale 2522

Sale 2522 - Lot 327

Price Realized: $ 22,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 25,000 - $ 35,000
PABLO PICASSO
Taureau ailé contemplé par Quatre Enfants.

Etching, 1934. 238x298 mm; 9 3/8x11 3/4 inches, full margins. Edition of 260. Signed in pencil, lower right. Picasso and Galatea watermarks. Printed by Lacourière, Paris. Published by Vollard, Paris. A superb, richly-inked impression with very strong contrasts.

Taureau ailé contemplé par Quatre Enfants is one of 100 different etchings from the Vollard Suite, a series Picasso produced from 1930 to 1937 for Parisian publisher Ambroise Vollard. While over 300 sets were printed, complete suites are exceedingly scarce, instead the prints from this series now are often found individually.

The suite spans Picasso's passionate, sometimes tumultuous affair with his teenage model and muse Marie-Thérèse Walter. Many of the earlier works in the series portray a sculptor in his studio among his work—alluding to the classical myth of Pygmalion (see lot 326). The later prints become increasingly dark as both his relationship with Marie-Thérèse waned and Europe marched toward World War II. Bloch 229; Geiser 444.