In an age when sculpture usually meant allegorical figures and portrait busts, Picasso’s life-size rendering of a glass of alcohol was shocking for its banality. Cast in bronze in an edition of six, and then hand-painted, none of the finished works is colored green, so it was clearly not absinthe’s distinctive color that inspired Picasso. Nor does he seem to have been moved by the national debate about whether to ban the potent liquor. Instead, absinthe presented Picasso with the opportunity to incorporate an actual piece of cutlery, a trowel-shaped, slotted spoon designed to hold a sugar cube over the rim of a glass when preparing the drink. When asked about the sculpture years later, Picasso remembered that he had been particularly intrigued by “the relationship between the real spoon and the modeled glass. In the way they clashed with each other.”
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[Galerie Kahnweiler, Paris, by July 17, 1914; inv. no. 1984; photo nos. 356, 392; sequestered Kahnweiler stock, December 12, 1914–21; first Kahnweiler sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, June 13–14, 1921, no. 139 (comprised of 5 painted bronze casts of "The Absinthe Glass," each sold individually for Fr 55 to Fr 100)]; Henry Ford II, Grosse Pointe, Michigan (until d. 1987; his estate, 1987–90; his estate sale, Sotheby’s, New York, November 12, 1990, no. 25, sold to Krugier); [Jan Krugier& Cie, Geneva, 1990–91; sold in April 1991 to Lauder]; Leonard A. Lauder, New York (from 1991)
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Luise Mahler, and Virginie Perdrisot, with Rebecca Lowery inPicasso Sculpture. Ed. Anne Umland Ann Temkin. Exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York. New York, 2015, pp. 79–80, 110, 112, 215, 289 ns61 and 67, pl. 24.
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Anne Lemonnier inThe Cubist Cosmos: From Picasso to Léger. Ed. Brigitte Leal, Christian Briend, and Ariane Coulondre. Exh. cat., Kunstmuseum Basel. Munich, 2019, p. 293 [German ed., Munich 2019].
Virginie Perdrisot-Cassan inThe Cubist Cosmos: From Picasso to Léger. Ed. Brigitte Leal, Christian Briend, and Ariane Coulondre. Exh. cat., Kunstmuseum Basel. Munich, 2019, pp. 150–51, ill. (color) [German ed., Munich, 2019].
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Annie Cohen-Solal. Un Étranger nommé Picasso: Dossier de police, no. 74.664. Paris, 2021, pp. 255, 257, 266 (not this edition).
Elizabeth Cowling in Emily Braun and Elizabeth Cowling. Cubism and the Trompe l’Oeil Tradition. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2022, pp. 166, 247, 261 n. 9, colorpl. 72.
1 of an edition of 6 cast bronzes, each uniquely treated
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.
Pablo Picasso (Spanish, Malaga 1881–1973 Mougins, France)
1921
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