Lot: 251

Pablo Picasso* (1881 - 1973)
'Les Saltimbanques', 1905

Drypoint etching. Signed and dated in the plate lower right: Picasso 1905. Image size 28.6 x 32.8 cm, sheet size: 51 x 66 cm. Clear impression with slightly wiped plate tone on Van Geldern wove paper. Zones with watermark. One of 250 copies. Plate 7 of the series 'Saltimbanques'. Printed by Louis Fort. Published by Edition Vollard, Paris 1913. Bloch 7. Geiser Baer 9 II b (of II c). Framed under glass and described as such.
This print is from the series of fifteen etchings that Picasso created in 1904/05. Fourteen of these etchings - the eleventh, 'La famille des Saltimbanques,' was rejected by the artist and not published - were released in 1913 by the art dealer Ambroise Vollard in an edition of 250 impressions on Van Geldern Zonen paper and 27 or 29 impressions on old Japanese paper. The prints were almost never signed. Only a few dedication copies exist, which were mostly made from the unsteel-coated plate.
Provenance:
Private collection, Cologne; acquired in 1981 from Galerie Pels-Leusden, Berlin.

Reserve price: 4,000 €