Inscription: Signed (lower right, below image, in graphite): Picasso; inscribed (lower left corner, in graphite): 38'3 [erased]
[Ambroise Vollard, Paris, d. 1939; his estate, Paris, 1939–40s; sold in the 1940s to Petiet]; [Henri M. Petiet, Paris, from 1940s]; private collection (sold to Cristea); [Alan Cristea Gallery, London, until 1997; sold to MMA]
Laramie. University of Wyoming Art Museum. "Toro!! The Bull in Human History, Art, and Sports," April 16–August 14, 2005, unnumbered cat.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," April 27–August 1, 2010, no. P51.
William S. Lieberman. "Picasso: His Graphic Art." Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art 19 (Winter 1952), p. 5.
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, pp. 72–73, no. 225, ill., calls it "Minotaure aveugle guidé par une Fillette dans la Nuit".
Herschel B. Chipp. "'Guernica': Love, War, and the Bullfight." Art Journal 33 (Winter 1973–74), pp. 103, 109, fig. 12 (detail; unknown edition).
Hans Bolliger. Picasso's Vollard Suite. New York, 1985, pp. xii–xiii, xviii, pl. 97, calls it "Blind Minotaur Led through the Night by Girl with Fluttering Dove" and dates it about 1935.
Timothy Anglin Burgard. "Picasso's 'Night Fishing at Antibes': Autobiography, Apocalypse, and the Spanish Civil War." Art Bulletin 68 (December 1986), p. 659 n. 7.
Pat Gilmour. "Picasso and His Printers." Print Collector's Newsletter 18 (July–August 1987), p. 84.
Sebastian Goeppert and Herma C. Goeppert-Frank. Minotauromachy by Pablo Picasso. Geneva, 1987, pp. 42–43, ill. (unknown edition), call it "Blind Minotaur Guided Through the Night by a Young Girl with a Fluttering Dove".
Bernhard Geiser and Brigitte Baer. Picasso Peintre-Graveur. Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre gravé et des monotypes. Vol. 2, 1932–1934. Bern, 1992, pp. 314–17, 490, no. 437.IV.Bd, ill., call it "Minotaure aveugle guidé par Marie-Thérèse au pigeon dans une nuit étoilée".
Lisa Florman. Myth and Metamorphosis: Picasso's Classical Prints of the 1930s. Cambridge, Mass., 2000, pp. 72–73, 145, 148, 166, figs. 3.4, 4.6 (not this edition, collection Musée Picasso, Paris), dates it about 1935.
Gary Tinterow inCézanne 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 inCézanne 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 inCézanne 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. 19, 22, 35, 174, 182, 186, no. 97, ill. p. 175 (color; not this edition; collection British Museum, London), calls it "Blind Minotaur Led by a Little Girl in the Night".
Alexandra Parigoris. "Picasso's Vollard Suite." Print Quarterly 30 (June 2013), p. 240.
Christine Poggi. "Stage at the Edge of the Sea: Picasso's Scenographic Imagination." Art Bulletin 101 (March 2019), pp. 93, 108–9, 111, fig. 20 (not this edition; collection Philadelphia Museum of Art), calls it "Blind Minotaur Led by a Girl at Night".
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 M. Petiet. Petiet sold the sets as the "Suite Vollard," but in subsequent years many sets were separated. The number 383 on the lower left of this print derives from Petiet’s own numbering system. This is plate 97 in the Vollard Suite.
Pablo Picasso (Spanish, Malaga 1881–1973 Mougins, France)
1921
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