Picasso’s Femme nue couchée au collier (Marie-Thérèse), 1932 and Femme assise dans un fauteuil noir (Jacqueline), 1962 take centre stage at Christie’s 20th Century Art Evening Sale on 23rd March. Conducted from London, the live streamed auction will unite collectors via its Hong Kong and New York sale rooms. The evening sale forms a key part of Christie’s global Season of 20th Century Art Sales, launched on 1st March.
Painted on 18 June 1932, Femme nue couchée au collier (Marie-Thérèse) (estimate:£9,000,000-15,000,000) is one of the colourful, love-filled paeans that Pablo Picasso painted of Marie-Thérèse Walter in the first half of this seminal year. Painted some 30 years later, Femme assise dans un fauteuil noir (Jacqueline) estimate: £6,000,000-9,000,000) depicts his wife Jacqueline. Both of these vibrant portraits represent significant stylistic moments in Picasso’s career.
Keith Gill, Co-Head of Sale, 20th Century Art Evening Sale, Christie’s said: “Christie’s is delighted to offer these two symbolic paintings by Picasso as star lots in our Evening Sale series on 23 March 2021. Seen together, Femme nue couchée au collier (Marie-Thérèse) and Femme assise dans un fauteuil noir (Jacqueline) offer insight into the artistic development of one of the great masters of the 20th century. Both instantly recognisable – Marie-Thérèse in her iconic reclining pose and crown of blonde hair, and Jacqueline with her classical profile and wide-eyed gaze – these two paintings encapsulate the defining iconography of these two great muses. Picasso’s career is often defined by the women who so powerfully shaped his artistic output, his feelings for his sitters igniting the canvas, imbuing the composition with expressions of the love and affection he felt for the women he depicted. We expect global interest in these masterpieces as we convene collectors in London with livestream via our salerooms in Hong Kong and New York.”
It was in 1932, widely regarded as one of the greatest years of Picasso’s career, that the influence of Marie-Thérèse truly made itself felt in Picasso’s art, as he began an extraordinarily bold and euphoric series of erotically charged depictions of his new muse that saw the artist reach a peak of his painterly production.
This painting is one of the finest of an important series of intimate, tender depictions of Marie-Thérèse that contrast with the larger scale portraits of her that Picasso was painting concurrently throughout the spring and summer of 1932. Other examples of this group can be found in the Centre Pompidou, Paris, Musée Picasso, Paris and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
It is the figure of the artist’s final muse, and wife, Jacqueline Picasso, who appears enthroned in Femme assise dans un fauteuil noir (Jacqueline). Renowned for her raven coloured hair, dark, almond shaped eyes and striking, aquiline profile, Jacqueline appears in myriad ways in Picasso’s late work, his depictions of her dominating the art of the final two decades of his life.
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Photo: PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973), Femme nue couchée au collier (Marie-Thérèse), Estimate GBP 9,000,000 – GBP 15,000,000. © Christie’s Images Limited 2021