Pablo Picasso
After creating the Saltimbanques etchings Picasso took them to the esteemed printer Eugene Delâtre and commissioned him to produce a small edition of unknown size. Picasso did not enjoy working with Delâtre, as the printer did not follow the young artist's instructions, preferring to interpret the images as he saw fit. Picasso was building a reputation for himself but was still quite poor, and he hoped that these etchings would generate some much needed income. Unfortunately, most remained unsold, and the images were distributed to friends and supporters as gifts, most of them with a signature and a dedication.
By 1911, Picasso was attracting fame and notoriety for his Cubist work. The noted art dealer Ambroise Vollard purchased the original printing plates of the Saltimbanques suite and had them steelfaced to protect the delicate engraved lines. He then commissioned the printer Louis Fort to produce an edition of 250 copies on Van Gelder paper, with 27 or 29 special proofs on Japanese paper. This was an unusually large number, and reflects the confidence that Vollard had in the young artist. In contrast to the earlier edition, very few of these impressions were signed. Picasso enjoyed working with Fort as he deferred to the artist's exact specifications when printing the images.
Interestingly, the images within the Saltimbanques suite differ between the two editions. One image (La famille de Saltimbanques au macaque) is missing from the later set. It had been engraved onto a zinc plate which by 1911 had oxidised to the point of being almost unusable. To save money, many of Picasso's earliest etchings were made on metal plates that had previously been used and bore minor damage. The process of steelfacing exacerbated the damage in that etching and when Vollard saw the printed copies he had most of them destroyed.
Tête de Femme de Profil appears in both sets and is one of the most striking images in the series. With its supreme confidence and dazzling control of line and atmosphere, it's astonishing to think that it was one of Picasso's very first attempts at etching. It points the way ahead to nearly seventy years of trailblazing work in the field of print.
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Framing - This piece has been framed with anti-UV glass.
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