Nu et homme assis

In early 1966, while in Mougins convalescing from surgery he had undergone some months previously, Picasso re-read Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers. He had just begun painting again, and before long a new character entered his work, the musketeer, or the Spanish version of the 17th century cavalier, the hidalgo, a rakish nobleman skilled with the sword and daring in his romantic exploits. The brave and virile musketeer was strongly identifiable with the frail and aging artist himself, but also provided Picasso with a pretext to indulge in his love of Rembrandt, Velázquez and other great painters of the Baroque.
Like many of the artist's late works, the portraits of musketeers were done in series. Essentially traditional in pose and format, the musketeer became a favored subject over the next few years and allowed Picasso to explore different means of representing the human form within a strict framework. Picasso found this method of constant variation especially useful when exploring old master subjects. It was an effective means of probing and re-interpreting a style or manner, and the repeated appearance of these subjects demonstrates the playful way in which the artist liked to project his own personality and fantasies into characters from the past.

(fig. 1) The artist at Notre dame de vie, 1971.