Pablo Picasso

Estate of the artist

Claude Picasso

Pace Gallery, New York

James Goodman Gallery, New York (until March 1989)

Fabian Carlsson, London

Private Collection, New York

James Goodman Gallery, New York

Acquired from the above in 2003

Paris, Galerie Claude Bernard, Picasso Peintures 1901-1971, 1980, no. 5, illustrated in the catalogue

New York, James Goodman Gallery, Paintings, Watercolors and Drawings by Dubuffet, Léger and Picasso, 1988, no. 14

Josep Palau i Fabre, Picasso: from the Ballets to Drama (1917-1926), Barcelona, 1999, no. 373, illustrated p. 128

Good condition. Original canvas. Under UV, there is a spot of retouching above the veil to the right, and a spot on the figure's chest on the left. There are also more significant retouches to the upper and lower right corners, along the right edge at top and a few in the upper and lower left corners.
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Exemplifying Picasso's Neo-Classical period, the present composition belongs to a rare series that Picasso completed in 1919 devoted to the theme of children receiving the blessed sacrament.  Picasso had addressed this subject early in his career, with his solemn depiction in 1896 of his sister receiving her first communion.  The present work, however, demonstrates the artist's shrewd sense of irony in his relationship with this subject.  According to Josep Palau i Fabre, "[T]here are a number of compositions in which the artist seems to take picture or even revel in cultivating a pompier style of painting.  An example of this is The First Communion, taken from a photograph (a photograph which the artist kept).  The head of the girl is isolated and described with a poverty of material resources that reaffirms Picasso's wealth of artistic resources.  Picasso invariably needed to tell himself that he did what he pleased and that nobody had the right to place obstacles in his path.   In this specific case, the initial pompier version was followed by an ironic version, in which he allowed his fantasy to run free.  It is significant that during his lifetime the artist revealed the existence of this latter verion only, for he was well aware that his contemporaries could not simultaneously digest two such different realities" (op. cit. p. 128).