Still Life with Chair Caning
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.Picasso made the first Cubist collage by pasting a piece of oilcloth (a waterproof fabric used for tablecloths) onto an oval canvas depicting café fare and a newspaper. For this radical act—inserting a fragment of reality into the fictive realm of painting—he ingeniously selected a mass-produced, ready-made visual deception. Machine-printed to look like the textured rattan weave used in chairs, this piece of trumpery is materially real but patently fake. Picasso then surrounded his still life with rope, a handy substitute for the traditional hand-carved frames that mimic braiding. In so doing, he wittily imitated an imitation.
The Met acknowledges the exceptional generosity of the Musée National Picasso-Paris in lending this work; this is the first time in thirty years that it has been exhibited in the United States.
The Met acknowledges the exceptional generosity of the Musée National Picasso-Paris in lending this work; this is the first time in thirty years that it has been exhibited in the United States.
Artwork Details
- Title: Still Life with Chair Caning
- Artist: Pablo Picasso (Spanish, Malaga 1881–1973 Mougins, France)
- Date: 1912
- Medium: Oil and printed oilcloth on canvas edged with rope
- Dimensions: 11 7/16 × 14 9/16 in. (29 × 37 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Musée National Picasso-Paris, Dation Pablo Picasso, 1979 (MP 36)
- Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art