Pablo Picasso (1881 1973)

Pablo Picasso (1881 1973)
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
"Kneeling woman combing her hair," 1906.
Bronze with brown patina
Stamp of foundryman C. Valsuani "lost wax
Original unnumbered copy published in 1968 in ten copies numbered from 1 to 10, one unnumbered artist's copy and one unnumbered foundryman's copy.
H: 42.2; W: 31.8; D: 26 cm
A certificate from Mr Claude Ruiz-Picasso (Picasso Authentication) dated 23 October 2019 will be supplied to the successful tenderer.

Historical background :
This bronze was designed in 1906 in ceramics while Pablo Picasso was working with the great art dealer Ambroise Vollard. In 1910 Ambroise Vollard obtained from the artist to make a bronze edition of five signed and unnumbered copies, elaborated by the foundryman Claude Valsuani. The artist kept one copy, which can be found in the inventory of the painter's estate in 1973.
Three others are kept at the Hirshborn Museum in Washington, the Museum of Baltimore and the Ludwig Museum in Cologne.
The ceramics, for its part, was kept by Picasso, who then offered it to Raoul Pellequier, collector and brother of Max Pellequier, friend and banker of the artist.
In 1968, Raoul Pellequier, with Picasso's permission, asked the Valsuani Foundry to make ten more prints based on the ceramics, this time unsigned but numbered.
Of these ten copies we know, the 2/10 is kept at the Berggruen Museum in Berlin, the 5/10 at the NY Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, the 6/10 at the Kunsthalle in Hamburg, the 9/10 at the Picasso Museum in Paris.
In order to limit the cost of casting, Raoul Pellequier donated a print of the casting to the foundryman as a "foundryman's piece". This copy remained in the collections of the Valsuani Foundry until its sale in 1973. Acquired from the family that took over the foundry, our bronze then entered a Parisian collection.
Bibliography :
- A. Level, Picasso, Paris, 1928, page 58, under number 55 (another illustrated copy; dated 1904).
- C. Zervos, Pablo Picasso, Paris, 1957, vol. I, under number 329 (another illustrated copy, plate 153; titled 'La Coiffure' and dated 1905).
- W. Spies, Sculpture by Picasso, with a catalogue of works, New York, 1971, page 301, under number 7 (another illustrated copy, page 37).
- R. Penrose and J. Golding, eds, Picasso in retrospect, New York, 1973, page 277, under number 199 (another illustrated colour copy, page 123).
- E.U. Johnson, Ambroise Vollard, Publisher, Prints, Books, Bronzes, New York, 1977, page 169, under number 229.
- W. Spies, Picasso, Das plastische Werk, cat. expage, Berlin and Dusseldorf, 1983, page 372, under number 7 (another illustrated copy, pages 27 and 326).
- M.-L. Besnard-Bernadac, M. Richet and H. Seckel, Musée Picasso, Catalogue sommaire des collections, Paris, 1985, page 151, under number 277 (another illustrated copy).
- J. Palau i Fabre, Picasso, The Early Years 1881-1907, Barcelona, 1985, page 553, under number 1364 (another illustrated copy, page 473; entitled 'Kneeling woman plaiting her hair').
- J. Richardson, A Life of Picasso, London, 1991, vol. I, page 460 (another illustrated copy; titled ''Fernande combing her hair'').
- C.- PAGE Warncke and I.F. Walther, Pablo Picasso, Cologne, 1991, vol. I, page 143 (another illustrated copy).
- B. Léal, C. Piot and M.-L. Bernadac, The Ultimate Picasso, New York, 2000, page 505, under number 201 (another illustrated copy, page 98; entitled 'Kneeling woman doing her hair').
- W. Spies, Picasso, The Sculptures, Stuttgart, 2000, page 394, under number 7 (another illustrated copy, page 33 and 346).

On his return to Paris in the autumn of 1906, after a stay in Gósol, Pablo Picasso became interested in the motif of women washing or combing their hair, a subject that had always been a favourite with artists. Numerous paintings and drawings produced during these years in which the model is represented standing, sitting or kneeling attest to Picasso's intense research on this motif. Picasso's most ambitious and accomplished sculpture on the subject is certainly Woman combing her hair.
If this work refers to an ancient crouching Venus, it also evokes the Turkish baths of Ingres that Picasso admired so much.
First conceived in terracotta in the workshop of his compatriot Paco Durrio, a former friend and collector of Paul Gauguin's work, it was later cast in bronze. The influence of Gauguin's sculptures, evident in Woman coiffing her hair, is all the more convincing as Picasso was able to see a major retrospective of his work sculpted at the 1906 Salon d'Automne, which included the famous Oviri made in 1894 and now kept in the Musée d'Orsay.
Fernande Olivier, Picasso's mistress and muse at the time, was certainly the model from which Picasso drew his inspiration for Femme se coiffant, here transfigured into an ancient Venus with more primitive accents than Gauguin's Oviri.