Boy and Sleeping Girl by Candlelight, from the Vollard Suite

Inscription: Signed (lower right): Picasso; inscribed (lower left): SV26 / 385

[Ambroise Vollard, Paris, d. 1939; his estate, Paris, 1939–40s; sold in the 1940s to Petiet]; [Henri M. Petiet, Paris, from 1940s]; private collection, United States (until 1996; sold in January 1996 to Cristea); [Alan Cristea Gallery, London, 1996–97; sold to MMA]

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," April 27–August 1, 2010, no. P52.

Georges Bloch. Pablo Picasso. Vol. 1, Catalogue de l'oeuvre gravé et lithographié 1904–1967 / Catalogue of the Printed Graphic Work 1904–1967 / Katalog des graphischen Werkes 1904–1967. Bern, 1968, p. 73, no. 226, ill., calls it "Garçon et Dormeuse à la Chandelle".

Hans Bolliger. Picasso's Vollard Suite. New York, 1985, pp. xiii, xvi, pl. 26 (unknown edition), calls it "Boy Watching over Sleeping Woman by Candlelight" and dates it about 1935.

Sebastian Goeppert and Herma C. Goeppert-Frank. Minotauromachy by Pablo Picasso. Geneva, 1987, p. 72, ill. (unknown edition), call it "Boy and Sleeping Woman by Candlelight (Garçon et dormeuse à la chandelle)".

Bernhard Geiser and Brigitte Baer. Picasso Peintre-Graveur. Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre gravé et des monotypes. Vol. 2, 1932–1934. Bern, 1992, pp. 322–24, 490, no. 440.III.Bd, ill., call it "Garçon pensif veillant une dormeuse à la lumière d'une chandelle".

Lisa Florman. Myth and Metamorphosis: Picasso's Classical Prints of the 1930s. Cambridge, Mass., 2000, pp. 73, 105–6, 179, 226 n. 40, fig. 3.7 (not this edition, collection Musée Picasso, Paris).

Gary Tinterow in Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde. Ed. Rebecca A. Rabinow. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2006, pp. 101, 113–14, generally discusses the "Vollard Suite".

Ann Dumas in Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde. Ed. Rebecca A. Rabinow. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2006, p. 11, generally discusses the "Vollard Suite".

Rebecca A. Rabinow in Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde. Ed. Rebecca A. Rabinow. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2006, p. 206, generally discusses the "Vollard Suite".

Stephen Coppel. Picasso Prints: The Vollard Suite. Exh. cat., British Museum. London, 2012, pp. 22, 182–83, no. 26, ill. p. 75 (color; not this edition; collection British Museum, London), calls it "Boy and Sleeping Woman by Candlelight".

Vollard commissioned Picasso to produce a series of etchings, most likely for future book projects; ninety-seven were selected from images created between 1930 and 1934, and three portraits of Vollard were added to the series in 1937. 260 sets were printed on smaller paper and 50 sets on larger paper, for a deluxe edition.

After Vollard’s death in 1939, the recently printed plates remained in his estate until sold by Vollard’s brother to the dealer Henri Petiet. Petiet sold the sets as the "Suite Vollard," but in subsequent years many sets were separated. The inscription on the lower left of this print references that it is plate 26 from the "Suite Vollard"; the number 385 derives from Petiet’s own numbering system.