Etching on Montval laid paper, 1934. 497x699 mm; 19 5/8x27 1/2 inches, full margins. Signed and inscribed "1er etat" in pencil, lower margin. A superb, richly-inked impression of this large, scarce proof.
Ex-collection Curt Valentin, Bochholz Gallery, New York, circa 1940, with the original frame label; private collection, Princeton, New Jersey; sold Freeman's, Philadelphia, May 3, 2015, sale 1516, lot 4; private collection, New York.
This is one of 5 different etchings on the Femme torero theme that Picasso made in 1934. These were all created at the height of his liaison with Marie-Thérèse Walter and just before his permanent separation from his wife, the ballet dancer Olga Koklova. In each of the images, the female toreador's profile is that of Marie-Thérèse, less than half Picasso's age and an archetypal Swiss beauty; she is shown repeatedly by the artist with head thrown back, her languid body outstretched, in a sort of sensual slumber, over the back of or lying before the bull. During the summer of 1934, Picasso and Marie-Thérèse traveled through San Sebastian, Madrid and Toledo, before arriving in Barcelona in early September, taking in the bullfights in each of these places, with Picasso developing the imagery for these tour-de-force etchings. Bloch 1329; Geiser 425 B.
