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Woman Asleep at a Table

1936
Not on view
The ovoid shape of Marie-Thérèse Walter’s resting head and the simplification of her features recall the heaviness of sleep, as seen in Brancusi’s Sleeping Muse. Picasso moved his lover Marie-Thérèse and their one-year-old daughter, Maya, to a country house outside Paris in autumn 1936. Although he frequently depicted Marie-Thérèse asleep, this work may also reflect the sweet exhaustion of the new mother, as well as the perplexity of the fifty-five-year-old father: when Picasso painted this canvas, he had already met Dora Maar, his new lover.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Woman Asleep at a Table
  • Artist: Pablo Picasso (Spanish, Malaga 1881–1973 Mougins, France)
  • Date: 1936
  • Medium: Oil and charcoal on canvas
  • Dimensions: 38 1/4 × 51 1/4 in. (97.2 × 130.2 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: The Mr. and Mrs. Klaus G. Perls Collection, 1997
  • Object Number: 1997.149.3
  • Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

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