361
361
Pablo Picasso
SCÈNE DE TAUROMACHIE
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55,000 — 75,000
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LOT SOLD. 68,750 GBP
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361
Pablo Picasso
SCÈNE DE TAUROMACHIE
Estimate
Artist's Resale Right
Purchase of lots marked with this symbol will be subject to the payment of the artist's resale right.
Double Dagger
Indicates that the lot is being sold whilst subject to Temporary Importation, and that VAT is due at the reduced rate
55,000 — 75,000
GBP
LOT SOLD. 68,750 GBP
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Details & Cataloguing

Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale

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Pablo Picasso
1881 - 1973
SCÈNE DE TAUROMACHIE
signed Picasso and dated 16.11.61. (lower right); dedicated Pour Alex Merlino (towards upper centre)
wax crayon on paper on the frontispiece of a book entitled Picasso, Toros y Toreros by Luis Miguel Dominguin
37 by 27cm., 14 1/2 by 10 5/8 in.
Executed on 16th November 1961.
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The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Claude Picasso.

Provenance

Alex Merlino (a gift from the artist in 1961)
Sale: Artcurial, Paris, 3rd April 2007, lot 209
Private Collection, Paris
Sale: Artcurial, Paris, 5th June 2014, lot 213
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Catalogue Note

This charming and appealing group of three works on paper reveals Pablo Picasso’s remarkable ability to depict seemingly tangible and animated forms through a few deft strokes of the pen. Picasso drew as he lived and breathed, creating thousands of drawings throughout his long career which represent the instantaneous translation of his thoughts onto paper and which underpin all his artistic achievements.

Executed as ‘dedications’ for close friends on the frontispieces of books, Portrait de femme, Scene de tauromachie and Tête humoristique are highly personal works which display Picasso’s creative genius and skills as a draughtsman to superb effect. In particular, the subject of the bull fight, featured within Scene de tauromachie, stands as one of the most iconic within Picasso’s entire œuvre due to the special significance it held for the artist. As Neil Cox and Deborah Povey suggest: ‘For Picasso, the bullfight engendered special relationships between the horse, the matador, the picador, the Minotaur and, of course, the artist himself’ (N. Cox & D. Povey, A Picasso Bestiary, London, 1995, p. 29).

Fig. 1

The bullfight - Jacqueline Roque, Maia, Picasso, Claude and Cocteau, 1955, black and white photograph, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gifted in memory of Brian Brake, by a friend of the artist, 1989. © Succession Picasso/DACS, London 2017, © 2017 Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki

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