巴布羅·畢加索

Sam Salz, New York (acquired from the artist)

A gift from the above on March 18, 1952

Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, Supplément aux années 1920-1922, vol. 30, Paris, 1975,  no. 138, illustrated pl. 53

The Picasso Project (ed.), Picasso’s Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings and Sculpture. Neoclassicism I, 1920-1921, San Francisco, 1995, no. 21-021, illustrated p. 170

Very good condition. The sheet shows no sign of tears or planar distortions and is free of stains or discoloration. There is one small loss to the top-left edge and three more small losses along the bottom including the bottom-left corner, none larger than 1/8". These disturbances likely occurred during the creation of the painting, or shortly thereafter before the work was mounted. Two small square reinforcement patches have been applied to the reverse at the bottom-center edge to stabilize thinned areas of paper. Although mild craquelure is evident in areas of white gouache, the medium appears to be stable and fresh.
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.
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Picasso executed this image of a woman asleep in a field in January 1921. He returned to similar scene several months later, in July of the same year, in a series of pencil drawings, which culminated in La Source, now in the Musée Picasso in Paris, and the oil of the same title (fig. 1) in the collection of Moderna Museet in Stockholm. The origin of this imagery lies in Picasso’s travels in Italy in 1917, where he was inspired both by scenes of everyday rural life, and by the art of classical antiquity. During the winter 1920-21, Picasso also found a source of inspiration in the works of the seventeenth-century master Nicolas Poussin. Although Poussin’s subject matter is primarily drawn from Biblical motifs and mythology, his classically-inspired landscapes populated with figures depicted in a powerful Baroque style would have certainly appealed to Picasso during this period.

As Alfred Barr observed, around 1920 Picasso "began to take an interest in the style, the sentiment, the characters, the mythology of Greek and Roman antiquity… Picasso’s neo-classicism was, of course, a part of a broad, complex reaction against the excesses and violent originalities of prewar movements such as cubism, expressionism and primitivism. By 1920 cries of back to Poussin! back to Ingres! back to Seurat! rang through Paris… back to the Greeks and Romans!... During his Italian trip in 1917 he visited Pompeii, and doubtless the museums of classical art in Rome and Naples" (Alfred Barr, Picasso: Fifty Years of his Art, New York, 1966, p. 115).