Pablo Picasso

Sala Gaspar, Barcelona
Acquired from the above in 1969

Palma, Galeria Pelaires, Picasso, 90, 1971 

Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, Oeuvres de 1967 et 1968, vol. XXVII, Paris, 1973, no. 242, illustrated pl. 96
The Picasso Project, ed., Picasso's Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings and Sculpture, The Sixties III, 1968-1969, San Francisco, 2002, no. 68-074, illustrated p. 22

Work is in excellent condition. Executed on cream wove paper. Affixed to mount along top edge on verso. Right edge of sheet is deckled. Sheet is clean, bright and line is very strong and bold.
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Following a number of health problems in the mid-1960s, Pablo Picasso was forced to retire from painting while he convalesced. It appears to be during this time that the artist re-read Alexandre Dumas’s novel The Three Musketeers. On returning to work, Picasso found himself suitably energized and the years 1967-68 signalled the beginning of a hugely creative period in the artist’s career. These years also presented a new motif: the musketeer. 

The musketeer was recognizable by his elegant, courtly costume, composing ruff, smart cloak and hat. Picasso found in the musketeer the ideal "alter-ego," a cypher for his personal expression as he approached his seventies: the figure was charming and noble, worldly and virile. The seventeenth-century-inspired cavalier came to define the artist’s later works and continuously appeared in Picasso’s compositions, often embarking on amorous adventures. For Picasso, the musketeer also signified a golden age of painting, conjuring the Dutch masters Velasquez and Rembrandt, thus allowing him to escape the limitations of contemporary subject matter and explore the spirit of a past age. Picasso devoted a large portion of his production throughout the late 1960s to the reinterpretation of the old masters, affirming his connection to some of the greatest painters in the history of art. 

The company of the old woman in the present composition adds a mischievous narrative dimension to the scene of a musketeer soliciting the attentions of a young courtesan figure. In the month of February 1968, Picasso embarked on a series of drawings taking the celebrated Spanish story of La Celestina as inspiration. The story narrates the tale of a man who employs the aid of an old procuress Celestina to help him seduce a young maiden. The character of Celestina provokes and incites, facilitating sexual pleasure and gleefully subverting the status quo. In the present work she stands solidly between musketeer and courtesan: a forbidding figure in the rendezvous, equal facilitator and disruptor. The pendant the courtesan holds perhaps represents the gold chain which pays for Celestina’s services in arranging the meeting.

Picasso took great pleasure in the theme and proceeded to execute numerous etchings and aquatints based on the story of La Celestina which were collected into 347 gravures, published by Galerie Louise Leiris in 1969. 66 of his Celestina prints were used to illustrate an edition of the novel printed in 1971.