The culmination of his life’s work, Picasso’s late drawings document the apotheosis of the great master. Quatre nus à la colombe arises from the remarkable period between 1966-68 in which Picasso devoted much of his creative energy to his works on paper. In his final years, Picasso began to reflect on his earlier life and work. His drawings from the 1960s revisit previous subjects like his performers, painter and model duos and amorous nudes in simplified linear renderings. The precise dating of his works, as exemplified in the present drawing, attests to Picasso’s abundant artistic vigor as he sought to ward off death by virtue of his own creation.

An undercurrent of sexuality runs through much of Picasso’s oeuvre, from his early confrontational nudes in Les Demoiselles d'Avignon of 1907 to the seductive interpretation of his young lover Marie-Thérèse from 1932 to the more explicit etchings from his La Suite 347, which often feature costumed lovers in the act. Thematically related to that series of prints yet unique in its execution, Quatre nus à la colombe achieves a remarkable clarity of line which would inspire the artist’s frenzied devotion to printmaking in the months immediately following this work (see fig. 1).

A rich and lyrical composition, Quatre nus à la colombe situates four nudes within an interior bath-like setting. Picasso’s mastery of spatial arrangement is evident in the figures’ curved forms, as they wrap around one another and fill the frame. Each woman’s gaze leads the viewer’s eye to the next and lends a rhythmic and undulating quality to the work. Set against the expanse of the window, a dove rests upon the hand of the woman at right. The pattern of the floor and curtain stand in contrast to the clear and assertive renderings of the central figures, drawing the women to the fore. The converging patterns in the floor and background also bring to mind the richly decorated compositions of Henri Matisse and the French Orientalists.

The subject matter and fulsome composition recall Ingres’ iconic scene of the Turkish Bath (see fig. 2). Like Ingres' painting, Quatre nus à la colombe situates the viewer at a remove, casting the scene as a voyeuristic fantasy of the artist's making. Picasso's nude figures serve as objects of desire, but also as the personifications of youth and eternality.

Returning to his early inspirations like Ingres, as well as his previous interpretations thereof (see fig. 3), Picasso not only references the French masters but rightfully asserts himself among them. As Charles Feld states, “A return to the past is not a systematic device in Picasso’s oeuvre and he does not use it on a purely intellectual level. Life, like a river depositing a fertile alluvial soil, has enriched the experience of Picasso’s cast of characters. In depicting them as he sees them the artist also reveals the humor, the irony, and the wisdom he has gained over the years, and thus, the new and at the same time more positive and more subtle relationship that binds him to the world” (op. cit., pp. 19-20).

Present among the four nudes is another significant subject for the artist. In the pantheon of Picasso’s archetypes, the dove stands out for its symbolic association, both within his oeuvre and in a wider societal context. Widely recognized as a symbol of peace, the dove first appeared in Picasso’s work in 1901 with his early Blue Period work L’Enfant à la colombe. The tender image of a child holding a bird gains further meaning in retrospect, as both would feature throughout Picasso's oeuvre. In 1949, his lithograph La Colombe (see fig. 4) was adopted as an international symbol of peace at a number of global conferences and became an instantly recognizable motif of the artist's. Executed in the wake of World War II and his earlier anti-war painting Guernica, this print embodied the anti-facist sentiments Picasso had come to hold closely. In 1949, the avian motif took on further significance for Picasso as he and his partner Françoise Gilot welcomed a daughter named Paloma—the Spanish word for dove.

Framed at the center of the present work, the dove adds an element of tranquility to the sensual scene of beauty. A poignant reflection on youth, passion and peace in the artist's late life, Quatre nus à la colombe comes to the market for the first time in more than 50 years.