Consummately assured, this work may be one of Picasso's last pictures depicting the itinerant acrobats called saltimbanques. The palette and serene mood link it to the Family of Saltimbanques (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), completed in late 1905. As with The Actor (MMA 52.175), Picasso borrowed the pose and hands from a work by the Neoclassical master Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (Comte de Pastoret, 1823–26, Art Institute of Chicago), who had himself borrowed the pose from Bronzino's sixteenth-century Portrait of a Young Man (MMA 29.100.16).
Picasso originally made the head of the young performer appear much more sculptural, with deeply cut curls and heavily lidded eyes. It is likely that, in the early 1920s, the Parisian dealer Paul Guillaume had the picture "washed" to soften its appearance prior to its sale to the American publisher and collector Scofield Thayer.
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Dr. Paul Linder, Basel (by April 1914); Mr. "N. N.," Basel (by April 1916); [Paul Guillaume, Paris, until 1923; sold in 1923 to Thayer]; Scofield Thayer, Vienna and New York (1923–d. 1982; on extended loan to the Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts, 1931–82; his bequest to MMA)
Zurich. Moderne Galerie (Gottfried Tanner). "Pablo Picasso," opened April 4, 1914, no. 1.
Kunsthalle Basel. "Ausstellung neuerer Kunst aus Basler Privatsammlungen," April 9–30, 1916, no. 208.
New York. Montross Gallery. "Original Paintings, Drawings, and Engravings Being Exhibited with the Dial Folio 'Living Art'," January 26–February 14, 1924, no catalogue (typed checklist no. 32; as "Boy").
Worcester Art Museum. "Exhibition of the Dial Collection of Paintings, Engravings, and Drawings by Contemporary Artists," March 5–30, 1924, no. 27 (as "Boy").
Northampton, Mass. Hillyer Art Gallery, Smith College. "The Dial Collection," May 1924, no catalogue.
New York. Jacques Seligmann & Co. "Picasso: 'Blue' and 'Rose' Periods, 1901–1906: Loan Exhibition," November 2–26, 1936, no. 20.
Art Institute of Chicago. "Sixteenth International Watercolor Exhibition," March 18–May 16, 1937, no. 114.
New York. Wildenstein & Co., Inc. "The Child through Four Centuries: Portraits of Children, 17th to 20th Centuries," March 1–28, 1945, no. 52.
Atlanta Art Association. "French Painting: David to Rouault," September 20–October 4, 1955, no. 47.
Birmingham Museum of Art. "French Painting: David to Rouault," October 16–November 5, 1955, no. 47.
Worcester Art Museum. "The Dial and the Dial Collection," April 30–September 8, 1959, no. 76.
New York. M. Knoedler and Co., Inc. "Picasso: An American Tribute. 1895–1909," April 25–May 12, 1962, no. 24.
Worcester Art Museum. "Selections from the Dial Collection," November 13–30, 1965, unnum. checklist.
Worcester Art Museum. "The Dial Revisited," June 29–August 22, 1971, unnum. checklist.
Worcester Art Museum. "'The Dial': Arts and Letters in the 1920s," March 7–May 10, 1981, no. 108.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Picasso the Engraver: Selections from the Musée Picasso, Paris," September 18–December 21, 1997, not in catalogue.
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. 8).
Barcelona. Museu Picasso. "Picasso y el circo," November 15, 2006–February 18, 2007, no. 40.
Martigny. Fondation Pierre Gianadda. "Picasso et le cirque," March 9–June 10, 2007, no. 40.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," April 27–August 1, 2010, no. 26.
[Hans] T[rog]. "Kunstchronik, Pablo Picasso." Neue Zürcher Zeitung 135 (April 17, 1914), p. 1.
Arts 6 (August 1924), facing p. 92, ill.
Harley Perkins. "The Dial Collection of Living Art: Paintings, Water Colors and Engravings Assembled by Scofield Thayer and Exhibited at the Worcester Art Museum." Boston Evening Transcript (March 22, 1924), p. 8.
Dial 79 (December 1925), ill. opp. p. 445.
F[rancis]. H[enry] T[aylor]. "Modern French Paintings in the Museum." Bulletin of the Worcester Art Museum 22, no. 4 (January 1932), pp. 65, 70, ill.
Christian Zervos. Pablo Picasso. Vol. 1, Works from 1895 to 1906. Paris, 1932, p. 121, nos. 276, 277, ill.
Perry B. Cott, ed. Art through Fifty Centuries from the Collections of the Worcester Art Museum. Worcester, 1948, p. 90, fig. 128.
Rafael Benet with Jorge Benet Aurell. Simbolismo. Barcelona, 1953, ill., cover and opp. p. 146.
Denys Sutton. Picasso, Peintures: Époques bleue et rose. 2nd ed. (1st ed., 1948). Paris, 1955, no. 36, ill.
Frank Elgar and Robert Maillard. Picasso: Étude de l'oeuvre. Paris, 1955, pp. 26, 30, 45, ill.
Frank Elgar and Robert Maillard. Picasso: A Study of His Work. New York, 1956, pp. 30, 34, ill.
Pierre Daix and Georges Boudaille. Picasso: The Blue and Rose Periods: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, 1900–1906. Greenwich, Conn., 1967, pp. 82, 280, no. XIII.19, ill.
Paolo Lecaldano. L'opera completa di Picasso blu e rosa. Milan, 1968, pp. 16, 104–5, no. 213, pl. 45, ill.
Frank Elgar and Robert Maillard. Picasso: A Study of His Work. Rev. ed. New York, 1972, pp. 25–26, no. 18, ill.
Donald E. Gordon. Modern Art Exhibitions, 1900–1916: Selected Catalogue Documentation. Vol. 2, Munich, 1974, p. 119.
Meyer Schapiro. "Mondrian: Order and Randomness in Abstract Painting." Modern Art: 19th & 20th Centuries, Selected Papers. New York, 1978, p. 119 n. 6.
Denys Chevalier. Picasso: The Blue and Rose Periods. New York, 1978, p. 83, ill.
Josep Palau i Fabre. Picasso: The Early Years, 1881–1907. New York, 1981, pp. 428–29, 548, no. 1170, ill.
Pablo Picasso. Tokyo, 1981, pl. 26.
Peter P. Donker. "Museum Losing Dial Art: Collection Going to New York." Worcester Telegram (August 11, 1982), p. 1, ill.
Lisa M. Messinger in "Twentieth Century Art." The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Notable Acquisitions, 1984–1985. New York, 1985, pp. 48–49, ill. (color).
Pierre Daix and Georges Boudaille. Picasso, 1900–1906: Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint. Neuchâtel, 1988, p. 280, no. XIII.19, ill.
Núria Rivero and Teresa Llorens inPicasso, 1905–1906: From the Rose Period to the Ochres of Gósol. Exh. cat., Museu Picasso. Barcelona, 1992, p. 264 n. 1.
Hélène Seckel. Picasso: Les Chefs-d'oeuvre de la période rose. Quarante tableaux. Munich and Paris, 1992, pl. 18.
Christian Geelhaar. Picasso: Wegbereiter und Förderer seines Aufstiegs, 1899–1939. Zürich, 1993, pp. 60–62, 276 nn. 199–200, fig. 51.
Colette Giraudon. Paul Guillaume et les peintres du XXe siècle: De l'art nègre à l'avant-garde. Paris, 1993, p. 19, ill.
Impressionist and Modern Paintings, Drawings, and Sculptures, part 1. November 7, 1995, p. 66, fig. 3.
Lucy Belloli. "Lost Paintings beneath Picasso's 'La Coiffure'." Metropolitan Museum Journal 40 (2005), pp. 156–57, fig. 12.
Julia May Boddewyn in Michael FitzGerald. Picasso and American Art. Exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, 2006, pp. 333–34, 344–45, 360.
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, 74–77, no. 26, 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. 77, figs. 26.3 (prior to alteration), 26.4 (X-radiograph).
Pablo Picasso (Spanish, Malaga 1881–1973 Mougins, France)
1929
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