PABLO PICASSO | MATERNITÉ (B. 1829; BA. 726)

According to Brigitte Baer in Picasso, Peintre-Graveur, III, the technique Picasso used for five rare works in 1938 was analogous to the mimeograph process used before the appearance of the photocopy, or closer still to the process of drawing on a magic slate (ardoise magique). The matrix or stencil is a sheet of felted fibers coated with a layer of wax. Picasso drew directly on the stencil, removing the wax, allowing the ink to pass through the wax-free areas. The process thus can be classified as both a mechanical reproduction of a drawing and an engraved work as Picasso worked directly on the matrix.

Only a small number of experimental impressions appear to have been produced from any of these subjects, and the original drawings on specially treated paper for most of these works are presumed lost.