Following the completion of Family of Saltimbanques (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) in the winter of 1905–6, Picasso planned another ambitious picture. While it does not exist in a definitive version, the studies for it suggest a grand, elegiac painting on a very large scale. The Met's sketch is the most impressive of the remaining studies showing the entire composition of nude adolescents washing and watering their horses in an arid, mountainous landscape.
It can be said that the The Watering Place is a temporal sequel to the Family of Saltimbanques, the circus figures having stripped to wash themselves and their horses. (In earlier studies, the principal boy leading a horse wears a saltimbanque's costume.) Picasso relied on a number of specific sources to create his picture, from a painting by Gauguin (itself a reworking of a composition by Degas) to quotations from the Parthenon frieze and works by Paul Cézanne, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, and William Holman Hunt.
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Inscription: Signed in black ink, lower left: Picasso
[Galerie Alfred Flechtheim, Düsseldorf and Berlin, by 1913–1923; his private collection by February 1913; later Berlin gallery stock; sold in May 1923, for $1,000, to Thayer]; Scofield Thayer, Vienna and New York (1923–d. 1982; on extended loan to the Worcester Museum of Art, Worcester, Massachusetts, as part of the Dial Collection, 1931–1982, inv. 31.765; his bequest to MMA)
Munich. Moderne Galerie Heinrich Thannhauser. "Ausstellung Pablo Picasso," February 1913, no. 17.
Hannover. Kestnergesellschaft. "Französische Malerei bis 1914 und Deutsche Künstler des Café du Dôme, Gemälde, Graphik: XXVII.–XXVIII. Sonderausstellung," September 7–November 12, 1919, no. 116.
New York. Montross Gallery. "Original Paintings, Drawings, and Engravings Being Exhibited with the Dial Folio 'Living Art'," January 26–February 14, 1924, no catalogue (typed checklist no. 30; as "Le Bain des Chevaux").
Rochester, N. Y. Memorial Art Gallery. "The Dial Portfolio of "Living Art"," February–March 1924, no. 68.
Worcester Art Museum. "Exhibition of the Dial Collection of Paintings, Engravings, and Drawings by Contemporary Artists," March 5–30, 1924, no. 26 (as "Le Bain des Chevaux").
Northampton, Mass. Hillyer Art Gallery, Smith College. "The Dial Collection," May 1924, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Nudes: A Selection from the Bequest of Scofield Thayer," February 12–October 31, 1993, no catalogue.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "Picasso: The Early Years, 1892–1906," September 10, 1997–January 4, 1998, no. 142.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," April 27–August 1, 2010, no. 29.
Philadelphia Museum of Art. "Gauguin, Cézanne, Matisse: Visions of Arcadia," June 20–September 3, 2012, no. 104.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection," March 19–June 22, 2015.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art [The Met Breuer]. "Obsession: Nudes by Klimt, Schiele and Picasso from the Scofield Thayer Collection," July 3–October 7, 2018, no. 40.
Scofield Thayer. Living Art: Twenty Facsimile Reproductions after Paintings, Drawings and Engravings and Ten Photographs after Sculpture by Contemporary Artists. New York, 1923, paintings section, colorpl. 6, calls it "Le Bain des Chevaux" and dates it 1905.
Thomas Craven. "Living Art." Dial 76 (February 1924), p. 182.
Henry McBride. "Modern Art." Dial 76 (February 1924), p. 207, calls it "Le Bain des Chevaux".
[Elisabeth Luther Cary]. "The World of Art: Modern Art of One Kind and Another." New York Times (January 27, 1924), p. SM10.
Clive Bell. "Modern Art, and How to Look at It: A Critical Appreciation of 'The Dial' Portfolio, 'Living Art',' with Certain Instructive Remarks." Vanity Fair 21 (April 1924), p. 56, ill.
Margaret Breuning. "New York Art Galleries Crowded with Many Shows. Living Art." New York Evening Post (February 2, 1924), p. [14].
Harley Perkins. "The Dial Collection of Living Art: Paintings, Water Colors and Engravings Assembled by Scofield Thayer and Exhibited at the Worcester Art Museum." Boston Evening Transcript (March 22, 1924), p. 8.
Wyndham Lewis. "Art Chronicle." Criterion 3 (October 1924), pp. 107–8.
Arthur Millier. "Many Paintings, a Few Facsimiles." Los Angeles Sunday Times (June 15, 1924), p. 28, calls it "Bain des Chevaux".
Walter Pach. "Living Art." Freeman 8 (March 5, 1924), p. 621.
Herbert J. Seligmann. "Living Art for Americans." Nation 118 (April 9, 1924), p. 403.
R[obert]. R[attray]. T[atlock]. "Review: Living Art." Burlington Magazine 44 (March 1924), p. 153.
Ralph Flint. "More Modernism in New York." Christian Science Monitor 16, no. 57 (February 2, 1924), p. 11.
Lewis Mumford. "Living Art." New Republic 37 (February 6, 1924), p. 291.
"Modern Art Spirit Seen in Collection." Worcester Daily Telegram (March 6, 1924), p. 4.
Dial 78 (June 1925), ill. opp. p. 445.
F[rancis]. H[enry] T[aylor]. "Modern French Paintings in the Museum." Bulletin of the Worcester Art Museum 22, no. 4 (January 1932), pp. 67, 70, ill.
Christian Zervos. Pablo Picasso. Vol. 1, Works from 1895 to 1906. Paris, 1932, p. 118, no. 265, ill.
Elizabeth McCausland. "Picasso." The Springfield Republican (February 7, 1934), unpaginated.
Alfred H. Barr Jr. Picasso: Fifty Years of His Art. New York, 1946, p. 42, ill.
Joan Merli. Picasso, el artista y la obra de nuestro tiempo. 2nd ed. (1st ed.,1942). Buenos Aires, 1948, p. 599, fig. 133.
Adelyn D. Breeskin. "Early Picasso Drawings in the Cone Collection." Magazine of Art 45 (March 1952), p. 107.
Elinor Castle Nef: Letters and Notes. Ed. John U. Nef. Vol. 1, Los Angeles, 1953, pp. 138–39, ill.
Frank Elgar and Robert Maillard. Picasso: Étude de l'oeuvre. Paris, 1955, pp. 27, 34, ill.
Frank Elgar and Robert Maillard. Picasso: A Study of His Work. New York, 1956, p. 38, ill.
Frank Elgar. Picasso: Blue, Pink Periods. New York, 1956, pl. 10.
Antonina Vallentin. Pablo Picasso. Paris, 1957, p. 119.
Jacqueline Bouchot-Saupique. French Drawings from American Collections: Clouet to Matisse. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1959, p. 137.
Anthony Blunt and Phoebe Pool. Picasso, the Formative Years: A Study of His Sources. London, 1962, p. 26.
Nicholas Joost. Scofield Thayer and The Dial: An Illustrated History. Carbondale, Ill., 1964, pp. 229, 237.
Jean Sutherland Boggs, ed. Picasso and Man. Exh. cat., Art Gallery of Toronto. Toronto, 1964, p. 45.
"Picasso's Neo-Classicism: First Period, 1905–6." Apollo 81 (February 1965), pp. 123–25, ill. [reprinted in Ref. Combalía 1981].
Theodore Reff. "Book Reviews: 'Picasso, The Formative Years,' Anthony Blunt and Phoebe Pool." Art Bulletin 48 (June 1966), p. 267.
Pierre Daix and Georges Boudaille. Picasso: The Blue and Rose Periods: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, 1900–1906. Greenwich, Conn., 1967, pp. 87, 90, 92–94, 96–97, 274, 284, 286–88, no. XIV.16, ill.
Paolo Lecaldano. L'opera completa di Picasso blu e rosa. Milan, 1968, p. 106, no. 239, pls 52, 53, ill.
Georges Boudaille. Picasso: Première époque, 1881–1906: Périodes bleue et rose. Paris, 1969, ill.
André Fermigier. Picasso. Paris, 1969, p. 74.
Nicholas Joost. "The Dial Collection: Tastes and Trends of the 'Twenties." Apollo 94 (December 1971), pp. 493–94, fig. 10.
William Rubin, ed. Picasso in the Collection of The Museum of Modern Art, including Remainder-Interest and Promised Gifts. Exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art. New York, 1972, pp. 34, 192–93, fig. 10.
Frank Elgar and Robert Maillard. Picasso: A Study of His Work. Rev. ed. New York, 1972, pp. 23–24, fig. 17.
Norma Broude. "Picasso's Drawing, 'Woman with a Fan': The Role of Degas in Picasso's Transition to His 'First Classical Period'." Allen Memorial Art Museum Bulletin 29 (winter 1972), pp. 86–87, fig. 6.
William John Mahar. "Neo-Classicism in the Twentieth Century: A Study of the Idea and Its Relationship to Selected Works of Stravinsky and Picasso." PhD diss., Syracuse University, 1972, pp. 395, 401–2.
Donald E. Gordon. Modern Art Exhibitions, 1900–1916: Selected Catalogue Documentation. Vol. 2, Munich, 1974, p. 663 (Munich 1913, no. 17), 794 (possibly Vienna 1914, no. 43).
Pierre Cabanne. Le Siècle de Picasso, I: La Jeunesse, le cubisme, le théâtre, l'amour, 1881–1937. Paris, 1975, pp. 12, 177, 213.
Timothy Hilton. Picasso. London, 1975, pp. 60, 62.
Victor I. Carlson. Picasso: Drawings and Watercolors, 1899–1907, in the Collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art. Baltimore, 1976, pp. xiv, xvi–xvii, 44, 104, fig. 19.
Pierre Cabanne. Pablo Picasso: His Life and Times. New York, 1977, p. 104.
Denys Chevalier. Picasso: The Blue and Rose Periods. New York, 1978, pp. 71, 76, ill.
Hiroyuki Itsuki and Haruki Yaegashi. The Book of Great Masters 32: Picasso. Tokyo, 1978, pl. 33.
Carol Hynning Smith. Master Drawings and Watercolors of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Exh. cat., Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. New York, 1979, p. 80.
Mary Mathews Gedo. Picasso: Art as Autobiography. Chicago, 1980, p. 70.
Susan Mayer. "Ancient Mediterranean Sources in the Works of Picasso, 1892–1937." PhD diss., New York University, 1980, sect. VI figs 17, 18, 20 (detail).
John Richardson. "Your Show of Shows." New York Review of Books 27 (July 17, 1980).
Ann Keck-Henderson. "A View from the Twenties: Modernism and the Dial Collection." Worcester Art Museum Journal 4 (1980–81), pp. 32–33, fig. 3.
Josep Palau i Fabre. Picasso: The Early Years, 1881–1907. New York, 1981, pp. 434–35, 444, 549, no. 1197, ill.
Roland Penrose. Picasso: His Life and His Work. 3rd ed. (1st ed., 1958). Berkeley, 1981, p. 117.
Pablo Picasso. Tokyo, 1981, pl. 30.
Victoria Combalía Dexeus, ed. Estudios sobre Picasso. Barcelona and Madrid, 1981, pp. 141–42, fig. 3.
Gary Tinterow. Master Drawings by Picasso. Exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum. Cambridge, Mass., 1981, p. 66.
Günter Metken inPablo Picasso: Eine Ausstellung zum hundersten Geburtstag. Werke aus der Sammlung Marina Picasso. Ed. Prof. Dr. Werner Spies (MOD). Exh. cat., Haus der Kunst München. Munich, 1981, p. 39.
Jacques Perry. Yo Picasso. Paris, 1982, p. 126.
Brigitte Baer. Picasso the Printmaker: Graphics from the Marina Picasso Collection. Exh. cat., Dallas Museum of Art. Dallas, 1983, p. 34.
Lisa M. Messinger in "Twentieth Century Art." The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Notable Acquisitions, 1984–1985. New York, 1985, pp. 48–49, ill.
Magdalena M. Moeller. Picasso im Sprengel Museum Hannover: Druckgraphik, illustrierte Bücher, Zeichnungen, Collagen und Gemälde. Exh. cat., Sprengel Museum Hannover. Hannover, 1986, p. 11, ill.
Gary Tinterow et al. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 8, Modern Europe. New York, 1987, p. 114, colorpl. 90.
Pierre Daix. Picasso créateur: La Vie intime et l'oeuvre. Paris, 1987, p. 70.
Pierre Daix and Georges Boudaille. Picasso, 1900–1906: Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint. Neuchâtel, 1988, pp. 87, 90, 92–94, 96–97, 274, 284, 288, no. XIV.16, ill.
Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington. Picasso: Creator and Destroyer. New York, 1988, fig. 17.
Anatoli Podoksik. Picasso: La Quête perpétuelle. Paris, 1989, pp. 47, 50, 158, ill.
Patricia Leighten. Re-Ordering the Universe: Picasso and Anarchism, 1897–1914. Princeton, 1989, pp. xi, 78, fig. 50.
John Richardson with the collaboration of Marilyn McCully. A Life of Picasso. Vol. 1, 1881–1906. New York, 1991, pp. 424–25, 427, 441, 511 n.37, ill.
Denys Chevalier. Picasso: The Blue and Rose Periods. New York, 1991, pp. 80, 85, ill.
Núria Rivero and Teresa Llorens inPicasso, 1905–1906: From the Rose Period to the Ochres of Gósol. Exh. cat., Museu Picasso. Barcelona, 1992, pp. 282, 284, 288, 290–92.
Hélène Seckel. Picasso: Les Chefs-d'oeuvre de la période rose. Quarante tableaux. Munich and Paris, 1992, pl. 21.
William Rubin inThe William S. Paley Collection. Exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York. New York, 1992, pp. 101–2, 166, fig. 48.
Pierre Daix. "L'Entrée de Picasso dans l'avant-garde (1905–1906)." Connaissance des Arts no. 481 (March 1992), p. 60.
Kate Farrell. Art and Nature: An Illustrated Anthology of Nature Poetry. New York, 1992, p. 88, ill.
Marilyn McCully inPicasso clasico. Ed. Gary Tinterow. Exh. cat., Palacio Episcopal. Málaga, 1992, pp. 78–79, 321–22, fig. 5.
Pierre Daix inPicasso, 1905–1906: From the Rose Period to the Ochres of Gósol. Exh. cat., Museu Picasso. Barcelona, 1992, pp. 43, 49 nn. 56, 58.
Josep Palau i Fabre inPicasso, 1905–1906: From the Rose Period to the Ochres of Gósol. Exh. cat., Museu Picasso. Barcelona, 1992, pp. 76–77, ill.
Hans Christoph von Tavel inPicasso, 1905–1906: From the Rose Period to the Ochres of Gósol. Exh. cat., Museu Picasso. Barcelona, 1992, p. 93.
Marilyn McCully inPicasso, 1905–1906: From the Rose Period to the Ochres of Gósol. Exh. cat., Museu Picasso. Barcelona, 1992, p. 59.
Christian Geelhaar. Picasso: Wegbereiter und Förderer seines Aufstiegs, 1899–1939. Zürich, 1993, p. 275 n. 156.
Maria Teresa Ocaña, ed. Picasso Landscapes, 1890–1912: From the Academy to the Avant-Garde. Ed. Brigitte Léal. Exh. cat., Museu Picasso. Boston, 1994, p. 243.
Pierre Daix. Dictionnaire Picasso. Paris, 1995, pp. 1–2, 84, 186, 583, 694–95.
Anatoli Podoksik. Pablo Picasso and the Creative Eye, from 1881 to 1914. Bournemouth, 1996, pp. 64–65, ill.
Robert Boardingham. The Young Picasso. New York, 1997, pp. 67, 80, ill.
Kirk Varnedoe inPicasso, Masterworks from The Museum of Modern Art. Exh. cat., High Museum of Art. New York, 1997, p. 42.
Brigitte Leal, Christine Piot, and Marie-Laure Bernadac. The Ultimate Picasso. New York, 2000, pp. 91, 94, 505, fig. 190.
Tomàs Llorens inForma: El Ideal Clásico en el Arte Moderno. Exh. cat., Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. Madrid, 2001, p. 66, fig. 13.
Tomàs Llorens Serra. Nacimiento y desintegración del cubismo: Apollinaire y Picasso. Pamplona, 2001, pp. 36, 102, fig. 10.
Elizabeth Cowling. Picasso: Style and Meaning. London, 2002, pp. 141–42, 194, fig. 117.
María Dolores Jiménez-Blanco inGauguin and the Origins of Symbolism. Ed. Guillermo Solana. Exh. cat., Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. Madrid, 2004, p. 95.
John Elderfield, ed. Modern Painting and Sculpture, 1880 to the Present at The Museum of Modern Art. New York, 2004, pp. 111, 508 n. 1.
Julia May Boddewyn in Michael FitzGerald. Picasso and American Art. Exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, 2006, pp. 333–34, 340, 345, 350.
José Álvarez Lopera in Carmen Giménez and Francisco Calvo Serraller. Picasso: Tradition and Avant-Garde. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid, 2006, pp. 96, 98–99, fig. 4.1.
Pierre Daix inPicasso cubiste. Ed. Anne Baldassari. Exh. cat., Musée Picasso. Paris, 2007, pp. 11–12, fig. 5.
Pierre Daix inPicasso et les maîtres. Exh. cat., Grand Palais. Paris, 2008, pp. 74–75, fig. 2.
Gary Tinterow inPicasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Gary Tinterow and Susan Alyson Stein. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2010, pp. 10, 83–85, no. 29, ill. (color).
Rachel Mustalish inPicasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Gary Tinterow and Susan Alyson Stein. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2010, p. 85.
Thomas Kellein and David Riedel, ed. Picasso 1905 in Paris. Exh. cat., Kunsthalle Bielefeld. Bielefeld, 2011, p. 110, ill.
Stanislas Colodiet inPicasso. Donner à voir. Ed. Michel Hilaire and Stanislas Colodiet. Exh. cat., Musée Fabre de Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole. Montpellier, 2018, pp. 139, 142, fig. 5 (color).
Sabine Rewald inObsession: Nudes by Klimt, Schiele and Picasso from the Scofield Thayer Collection. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art [The Met Breuer]. New York, 2018, pp. 94, 114, 127, no. 40, ill. p. 103 (color).
Eugenio Carmona inPicasso 1906: The Turning Point. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. Madrid, 2024, p. 20.
Pablo Salazar inPicasso 1906: The Turning Point. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. Madrid, 2024, p. 75, no. 3, dates it spring 1906.
Pablo Rodríguez inPicasso 1906: The Turning Point. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. Madrid, 2024, pp. 263, 265.
Pablo Picasso (Spanish, Malaga 1881–1973 Mougins, France)
ca. 1960
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