Pablo Picasso

Private Collection, Indiana
Acquired from the estate of the above in 2017

Douglas Cooper, Les Déjeuners, London, 1963, illustrated pl. 43
Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, Oeuvres de 1961 à 1962, vol. XX, Paris, 1968, no. 24, illustrated pl. 13

Executed on cream wove paper. The sheet is hinged to a mount at several places along the perimeter of its verso. All four edges of the sheet are deckled. The sheet is dirty and there is some scattered staining throughout. There are some minor handling creases along the edges. There is adhesive residue from a prior mounting visible on the verso of the upper and lower edges of the sheet. The work is in overall good condition.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

"When I see Manet’s Dejeuner sur l’herbe I tell myself there is pain ahead."
—Pablo Picasso, 1932

This intriguing statement reveals the fascination that Manet’s celebrated painting held for Pablo Picasso. Picasso was to revisit the work of many great masters for his “variations,” such as Cranach, Velásquez, Rembrandt and Delacroix, but his experiments with the composition of Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe were to be the most profound and complex of them all. Drawn to this particular composition’s almost mythical status as a painting of upmost modernity and bourgeois subversion, where oddly paired nude and clothed figures inhabit a strange theatrical scene, Picasso began to work on a series of his own versions beginning in 1954 with highly developed drawings such as the present work and soon progressing to a series of paintings, of which he executed twenty-seven between the years of 1959 and 1961.