Nov 03, 2016 - Sale 2429

Sale 2429 - Lot 436

Price Realized: $ 11,250
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 12,000 - $ 18,000
PABLO PICASSO
Salome.

Drypoint, 1905. 405x350 mm; 16x13 3/4 inches, full margins. Edition of 250. Van Gelder watermark. Printed by Louis Fort, Paris. Published by Vollard, Paris. From Saltimbanques. A superb impression with strong contrasts, significant burr on John the Baptist's head and the contours of the figures and crisp, inky plate edges.

Coinciding with his Rose Period (or Circus Period) of painting, Picasso's first series of etchings in 1905, generally known as La Suite des Saltimbanques, and created at the outset of his career at only 24 years old, are mostly candid representations of the lives and private moments of acrobats and gypsies. Picasso frequently attended the Cirque Médrano in Montmartre, Paris, at the time and associated with the circus entertainers, just as he himself had chosen to follow the bohemian life of an artist, on the fringe and as a performer--needing to create works which would dazzle the art buying public--rather than pursue a career as a young bourgeois professional as his family had intended for him. Bloch 14; Geiser 17.