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Estimate: $ 10,000 - $ 15,000
PABLO PICASSO Tête de Femme.
Etching on cream wove paper, 1905. 121x90 mm; 4x3 1/2 inches, wide margins. Edition of 250. Printed by Louis Fort, Paris. Published by Vollard, Paris. From Saltimbanques. A very good, dark and richly-inked impression of this early etching with strong contrasts.
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 empathized with the circus folk, 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. Among the 15 prints that comprise this series is one of Picasso's greatest graphic works, and one of the most recognizable prints ever created, the melancholic portrayal of a gypsy couple at a sparsely set table, Le Repas Frugal (see also lots 453 and 453A). Bloch 2; Geiser 3.
