Maternité

母性

Year: 1901
Inscription: The literature records the work as signed “Picasso” on the reverse (Richmond exhibition, 1941; Daix and Boudaille). Inscribed “Picasso 64.162” on the stretcher, with a Galerie Käte Perls label.
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 47.4 × 34 cm

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Pablo Picasso《Maternité》1901 Oil on canvas 47.4 × 34 cm　Photograph — Photograph

Pablo Picasso《Maternité》1901 Oil on canvas 47.4 × 34 cm　Verso label — Verso label

Pablo Picasso《Maternité》1901 Oil on canvas 47.4 × 34 cm　Verso inscription — Verso inscription

Provenance

Galerie Thannhauser, Munich (from 1902)
Alfred Flechtheim, Düsseldorf (from 1913)
Hugo Perls, Berlin (around 1932)
Galerie Käte Perls, Paris (acquired in 1937)
Perls Gallery, New York
Walter P. Chrysler Jr., New York (from 1941; sold at Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 22 March 1945, lot 90)
Alfred and Katrina Romney (acquired at the above sale)
Private Collection, Italy

Exhibited

Paris, Galerie Käte Perls, Picasso avant 1910, 1937, no. 14 (dated 1905)
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Collection of Walter P. Chrysler, 1941, no. 149 (catalogued as signed “Picasso” on the reverse)
Paris, Musée Picasso, Picasso 1901–1909: Masterpieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1998–99
Tokyo, National Museum of Western Art, Picasso’s World of Children, March–June 2000, no. 20

Literature

M. Raynal, Picasso, Paris, 1922, pl. 5 (dated 1902)
D. Sutton, Picasso: Peintures, Époques bleue et rose, Paris, 1955, no. 1 (illustrated, titled Virgin and Child)
C. Zervos, Pablo Picasso. Œuvres de 1895 à 1906, vol. I, Paris, 1932, no. 108, pl. 54
P. Daix and G. Boudaille, Picasso: The Blue and Rose Periods, Neuchâtel, 1967, vol. VIII, p. 196 (illustrated, titled Virgin and Child; catalogued as signed “Picasso” on the reverse)
J. Palau i Fabre, Picasso: The Early Years, Barcelona, 1985, no. 699, p. 277 (illustrated, titled Woman with Child on Her Lap)

About This Work

A mother and child at the threshold of the Blue Period

Painted in 1901, as Picasso’s Blue Period was beginning. After the suicide of his close friend Carlos Casagemas, his canvases turned to subdued tones dominated by blue, and solitude, poverty and the mother and child became recurring subjects. This painting belongs to the very beginning of that period.

The theme of mother and child

Mother and child is one of the subjects Picasso returned to throughout his life. The figure of a mother drawing her small child close on her lap reflects his empathy for human suffering and his attention to protection and vulnerability. The small format, 47.4 × 34 cm, heightens the sense of intimacy.

A provenance through renowned dealers and collectors

From 1902 the painting was with Galerie Thannhauser in Munich, from 1913 with the Düsseldorf dealer Alfred Flechtheim, and later with the Perls family’s galleries, before entering the collection of Walter P. Chrysler Jr. in 1941. It is recorded in the first volume of Zervos’s catalogue raisonné (no. 108), and in 2000 it was shown in Picasso’s World of Children at the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo.