Sotheby’s Announces Picasso With Hidden Image For Sale
by Raquel Shoshani
“La Gommeuse,” a seductive depiction of a nude Parisian woman wearing only a red scarf around her head and a flower in her hair, was painted by the young Spaniard Pablo Picasso in 1901, just months after his first successful show in Paris.
This painting from the collection of U.S. billionaire and collector William I. Koch is a rarely seen piece from Picasso’s Blue Period, between 1901 and 1904 when he painted with a primarily monochromatic palette of blues and greens. Undergoing depression after the suicide of his close friend Carlos Casagemas, Picasso typically painted alcoholics, street urchins, prostitutes, and frail beggars during this period. Most of the paintings of these three years are owned by international museums and are rarely for sale to the public.
The painting’s hidden image was discovered in 2000, during the owner’s conservation attempt. The mysterious image has been interpreted as a portrait of Picasso’s dealer and friend, Pere Marache, in the nude with just a striped turban on his head and necklaces around his neck. The outrageous portrait illustrates Marache urinating into the imaginary blue landscape. The image is accompanied by the inscription “Recuerdo a Mañach en el dia de su santo,” revealing this painting to be intended as a gift to his friend.
Simon Shaw, Sotheby’s global head of Impressionist and Modern art, said: “Above all others, Picasso’s Blue Period is prized as his breakthrough — this is the moment Picasso becomes Picasso. With her dreamy gaze and frank sensuality, the cabaret dancer in La Gommeuse ushers in a new visual idiom for the 20th century. Exploring themes which would underpin Picasso’s work for the next seven decades, the painting stands squarely between the bohemian nightlife of Toulouse-Lautrec and the raw expressionism of Munch and Schiele”.
Picasso’s “La Gommeuse” is currently on display in London until October 15th and will arrive in the New York gallery at the end of the month. The painting will be on view until the day of the sale, where it is estimated to sell for $60 million.
Reach Staff Reporter Raquel Shoshani here.
