It is likely that this unique, large-scale charcoal drawing on canvas was initially intended as an underdrawing for a painting. It reveals that Picasso drew in the basic outlines of his figural compositions before breaking up the forms and surrounding space into multidirectional planes and facets. Pentimenti, or traces of an earlier stage of conception, indicate alterations to the position of the model. The jagged line to the left of the head, which evokes the profile of a face, may also be interpreted as hair or part of the chair back.
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Inscription: Signed and dated (upper right, in pencil): Picasso / 1909 [underlined up to /]
the artist, Paris; [Galerie Pierre (Pierre Loeb), Paris, 1930s]; Louis Broder, Paris (until 2006; sold in September 2006 to Lauder); Leonard A. Lauder, New York (from 2006)
Paris. Petit Palais. "Les Maîtres de l'art indépendant, 1895–1937," June–October 1937, no. 20 (room 34, as "Femme à la mandoline").
New York. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. "Picasso Black and White," October 5, 2012–January 23, 2013, no. 9.
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. "Picasso Black and White," February 20–May 28, 2013, no. 9.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Cubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection," October 20, 2014–February 16, 2015, no. 54.
Les maîtres de l'art indépendant, 1895–1937. Exh. cat., Petit Palais. Paris, 1937, p. 106, no. 20.
Christian Zervos. Pablo Picasso. Vol. 2b, Works from 1912 to 1917. Paris, 1942, unpaginated (list of plates), no. 708, pl. 312.
Christian Zervos. "Oeuvres et images inédites de la jeunesse de Picasso." Cahiers d’art 25 (1950), ill. p. 278 (on display in Picasso's studio at 13, rue Ravignan, Paris).
Franco Russoli and Fiorella Minervino. L'opera completa di Picasso cubista. Milan, 1972, p. 99, no. 250, ill., (as "Donna con chitarra").
Françoise Cachin and Fiorella Minervino. Tout l'oeuvre peint de Picasso, 1907–1916. Paris, 1977, p. 100, no. 250, ill. p. 99.
Pierre Daix and Joan Rosselet. Picasso, The Cubist Years, 1907–1916: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings and Related Works. Boston, 1979, ill. p. 357 (on display in Picasso’s studio at 13, rue Ravignan, Paris; photograph as by the artist, 1909).
Josep Palau i Fabre. Picasso: Cubism, 1907–1917. New York, 1990, p. 500, no. 369, ill. p. 132.
Anne Baldassari. Picasso photographe, 1901–1916. Exh. cat., Musée Picasso. Paris, 1994, pp. 101, 103, 104, figs. 75, 77 (on display in Picasso’s studio at 13, rue Ravignan, Paris; photographs as by the artist, spring 1909).
John Richardson with the collaboration of Marilyn McCully. A Life of Picasso. Vol. 2, 1907–1917. New York, 1996, ill. p. 119 (on display in Picasso’s studio at 13, rue Ravignan, Paris; photograph as by the artist, 1909) (drawing erroneously identified as Zervos 1942, pt. 1, no. 155).
Anne Baldassari. Picasso and Photography: The Dark Mirror. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Paris, 1997, p. 66, figs. 84, 86 (on display in Picasso’s studio at 13, rue Ravignan, Paris; photograph as by the artist, spring 1909).
Arthur I. Miller. Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time and the Beauty That Causes Havoc. New York, 2001, p. 143, fig. 5.8 (on display in Picasso’s studio at 13, rue Ravignan, Paris; photograph as by the artist, spring 1909).
Carmen Giménez, ed. Picasso Black and White. Exh. cat., Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Munich, 2012, p. 217, no. 9, ill.
"Objects Promised to the Museum during the Year 2012–2013." The Metropolitan Museum of Art, One Hundred Forty-third Annual Report of the Trustees for the Fiscal Year July 1, 2012, through June 30, 2013 (2013), p. 47.
Andrea Bayer inCubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection. Ed. Emily Braun and Rebecca Rabinow. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2014, pp. 48–52, 305(1)nn.13, 15, no. 54, ill. p. 49 (color).
Anna Jozefacka and Luise Mahler inCubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection. Ed. Emily Braun and Rebecca Rabinow. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2014, p. 280, fig. 54 (photographed in Picasso's studio in the Bateau-Lavoir at 13, rue Ravignan, Paris, 1909).
Alan Hyman, ed. The Picasso Project: Picasso's Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings, and Sculpture, A Comprehensive Illustrated Catalogue, 1885–1973. Vol. 1909–1912, Analytic Cubism. San Francisco, 2015, pp. 25, 323, no. 1909-045, ill. p. 25.
Nancy Ireson inPicasso 1932—Love, Fame, Tragedy. Ed. Achim Borchardt-Hume and Nancy Ireson. Exh. cat., Tate Modern. London, 2018, pp. 149, 252 n. 2, ill. p. 148 (color).
Written on the verso (top of vertical stretcher crossbar, in pencil): exposé au / Petit Palais / 1937; (left of top stretcher bar, in pencil): Picasso
The ninth-annual Women and the Critical Eye program featuring a conversation between Emily Braun and Rebecca Rabinow, who discuss Leonard Lauder's criteria for collecting, including the importance of the "aesthetic wow," rarity, state of conservation, and attention to a work's curriculum vitae.
The Met's engagement with art from 1890 to today includes the acquisition and exhibition of works in a range of media, spanning movements in modernism to contemporary practices from across the globe.
