A typhus scare prompted Picasso's abrupt return to Paris from Gósol in August 1906, where he continued to work on projects he had begun in Spain. This drawing reveals the multiple sources that Picasso consulted and combined at this moment. The pretext of the composition—a female bather at a fountain—derives from Ingres and relates to The Harem (1906, Cleveland Museum of Art), Picasso's free reworking of Ingres's Turkish Bath (1862, Musée du Louvre, Paris) and La Source (1856, Musée d'Orsay, Paris). The compact forms and compositional clarity recall Puvis de Chavannes, but the splayed pose and archaizing features point to Gauguin. In particular, Picasso may have been thinking of a Gauguin watercolor that belonged to his friend the sculptor Paco Durrio, in whose studio he was working in autumn 1906.
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Inscription: Signed (lower right, in graphite): Picasso [underlined]
[Galerie Alfred Flechtheim, Düsseldorf and Berlin, until 1921; sold on October 19, 1921, for $120, to Thayer]; Scofield Thayer, Vienna and New York (1921–d. 1982; on extended loan to the Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Mass., as part of the Dial Collection, 1939–82, inv. 39.1928; his bequest to MMA)
Worcester Art Museum. "The Art of the Third Republic: French Painting 1870–1940," February 22–March 16, 1941, no. 52.
Worcester Art Museum. "The Dial and the Dial Collection," April 30–September 8, 1959, no. 199.
Worcester Art Museum. "Selections from the Dial Collection," November 13–30, 1965, unnum. checklist.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Selection Two: Twentieth-Century Art," June 4–September 2, 1985, no catalogue.
Canberra. Australian National Gallery. "20th Century Masters from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York," March 1–April 27, 1986, unnumbered cat. (p. 17).
Brisbane. Queensland Art Gallery. "20th Century Masters from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York," May 7–July 1, 1986, unnumbered cat.
Barcelona. Museu Picasso. "Picasso, 1905–1906: From the Rose Period to the Ochres of Gósol," February 5–April 19, 1992, no. 205.
Kunstmuseum Bern. "Picasso, 1905–1906: From the Rose Period to the Ochres of Gósol," May 8–June 26, 1992, no. 205.
New York. PaceWildenstein. "Picasso and Drawing," April 28–June 2, 1995, unnumbered cat. (pl. 4).
Paris. Musée Picasso. "Picasso 1901–1909: Chefs d'oeuvre du Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York," October 21, 1998–January 25, 1999, unnumbered cat. (fig. 33).
Stadthalle Balingen. "Pablo Picasso: Metamorphoses des Menschen; Arbeiten auf Papier, 1895–1972," June 20–September 24, 2000, no. 62.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," April 27–August 1, 2010, no. 37.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art [The Met Breuer]. "Obsession: Nudes by Klimt, Schiele and Picasso from the Scofield Thayer Collection," July 3–October 7, 2018, no. 45.
Christian Zervos. Pablo Picasso. Vol. 1, Works from 1895 to 1906. Paris, 1932, p. 168, no. 355, ill.
Nicholas Joost. Scofield Thayer and The Dial: An Illustrated History. Carbondale, Ill., 1964, ill. between pp. 268 and 269.
Worcester Art Museum News Bulletin and Calendar (December 1969), unpaginated, ill. (detail).
Nicholas Joost. "The Dial Collection: Tastes and Trends of the 'Twenties." Apollo 94 (December 1971), p. 488.
Gary Tinterow inPicasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Gary Tinterow and Susan Alyson Stein. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2010, pp. 10, 106–8, no. 37, ill. (color).
Rachel Mustalish inPicasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Gary Tinterow and Susan Alyson Stein. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2010, p. 108.
Sabine Rewald inObsession: Nudes by Klimt, Schiele and Picasso from the Scofield Thayer Collection. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art [The Met Breuer]. New York, 2018, pp. 89, 97–98, 127, no. 45, ill. p. 106 (color).
Metropolitan Museum conservator Rachel Mustalish makes discoveries beneath the surface of this 1906 drawing, including a link to Pablo Picasso's iconic portrait of Gertrude Stein.
Pablo Picasso (Spanish, Malaga 1881–1973 Mougins, France)
1921
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