Courses de taureaux

Details

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
Courses de taureaux
signed 'Picasso' (lower right)
pen and ink and coloured crayon on card
5 1/4 x 3 1/2 in. (13.3 x 9 cm.)
Executed in Barcelona 1901

Provenance

Sebastià Junyer-Vidal, Barcelona, by whom acquired directly from the artist, and until at least 1950.
Perls Galleries, New York (no. 12793).
Anonymous sale, Christie's, London, 30 June 1987, lot 348.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.

Literature

C. Zervos, Pablo Picasso, vol. I, Œuvres de 1895 à 1906, Paris, 1937, no. 90 (illustrated pl. 44; the illustration shows a signature by another hand. Maya Widmaier-Picasso has confirmed that this signature was subsequently removed, and Picasso signed the drawing at a later date).
A. Cirici-Pellicer, Picasso avant Picasso, Geneva, 1950, no. 176, p. 208 (illustrated with the old signature, as above; dated '1903').

Special Notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent. These lots have been imported from outside the EU for sale using a Temporary Import regime. Import VAT is payable (at 5%) on the Hammer price. VAT is also payable (at 20%) on the buyer’s Premium on a VAT inclusive basis. When a buyer of such a lot has registered an EU address but wishes to export the lot or complete the import into another EU country, he must advise Christie's immediately after the auction.

Brought to you by

Ottavia Marchitelli, Specialist Head of Works on Paper Sale

omarchitelli@christies.com +44 (0)20 7389 2980

Lot Essay

Picasso drew this scene on the reverse of a large business card belonging to Sebastià and Carles Junyer Vidal, his close friends in Barcelona in the early 1900s. The two brothers had inherited a yarn shop from their uncle, and Picasso spent countless convivial evenings there, gossiping with the proprietors and sketching on whatever paper he found at hand. He filled at least three dozen of their sturdy trade cards with drawings, sometimes rehearsing the wretched figures that populated his Blue Period canvases during this period, other times creating sardonic parodies of contemporary types or scenes of overt sexuality to entertain and titillate his friends.

In the present work, Picasso depicts and injured matador being escorted out of the plaza de toros by two picadores. As a child, Picasso went to bullfights regularly with his father, and his obsession for bulls and the corrida remained with him all his life and appeared in his works throughout his career.

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