The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Video/Audio (2)

James Nares: Street
(00:02:17) 18091 views

The Roof Garden Commission: Imran Qureshi
(00:01:17) 2096 views

Woman Ironing

Pablo Picasso (Spanish, Malaga 1881–1973 Mougins, France)

Date:: 1901
Medium:: Oil on canvas, mounted on cardboard
Dimensions:: 19 1/2 x 10 1/8 in. (49.5 x 25.7 cm)
Classification:: Paintings
Credit Line:: Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949
Accession Number:: 49.70.2

This artwork is part of Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art

This artwork is currently on display in Gallery 830

Description

Laundresses were famously the subject of Honoré Daumier, who was given a large exhibition in Paris in 1901. They were also painted by Edgar Degas, although very few of his works were displayed publicly in Paris at the turn of the century. Daumier's lithographs were passed around the studios of Barcelona, as were the few illustrated books on Degas's work.

Picasso's laundress is much more abject than those of either of his French antecedents; the bleak mood of the painting recalls that found in the work of the Catalan painter Isidre Nonell. Picasso gave this painting to his friend Jaime Sabartés, a poet. Alfred Stieglitz, the New York photographer and art dealer, bought it in 1912.
Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Signature: Signed and inscribed (etched into surface) in dark blue paint, upper right: a jacobus / sabartes / - ¦Picasso¦ -
Provenance

Jaime Sabartés, Barcelona (1901–12; gift of the artist; sold to Stieglitz); Alfred Stieglitz, New York (1912–d. 1946; his estate, 1946–49; gift to MMA, 1949)
Exhibition History

France: Musee Picasso, October 15, 1998 - January 15, 1999. ¦Picasso: 1901 - 1909¦.

Portland, Maine: The Portland Museum of Art, May 29, 1999 - September 6, 1999. ¦Fanciful, Melancholy and Tragic: Emotion in the Art of Pablo Picasso¦.

Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art. October 15, 2006-January 7, 2007; New York: MMA, March 7June 3, 2007, Barcelona & Modernity: Gaudi to Dali. Fig. 4 (cat. 4:13), p.138, illus. in color.

Florence. Palazzo Strozzi. "Picasso, Miró, Dalí. Angry Young Men: The Birth of Modernity," March 12–July 17, 2011, no. 4.6.
References

Picasso: Tradition and Avant-garde, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, Spain, May 22–September 17, 2006, ill. p. 87.