Lithograph; Casteljoux paper (350g); 30 x 24 cm in light passe - partout, 37 x 30 cm;
In 1931, the famous marchand Ambroise Vollard, suggested and in 1936 commissioned Picasso to illustrate "The History of Nature, General and Detailed" by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Count de Buffon (1707-1788), originally published in forty-four volumes between 1745 and 1804. Picasso, who was an animal lover, began creating engravings illustrating portions of Buffon's "Natural History" in the printmaking studio of Roger Lacourière. It was the first time Picasso used the sugar aquatint technique, which allowed him to achieve a wider gray scale. After the publisher's sudden death in a car accident in 1939, these 31 engravings were not published in their entirety until 1942, in an edition of 226 copies, thanks to his successor, Martin Fabiani, and Lacouriere's idea to use paper left over from the printing of "Suite Vollard" for Buffon's prints due to paper shortages during the war.
Picasso chose those animals that caught his eye illustrating them according to his own ideas. He worked mainly in aquatint, a technique he had been perfecting for the past two years (the technique first appears in a January 1934 board, "Femme nue assise et trios têtes barbues," Bloch 216).
The animals Picasso depicted on his plates for Eaux-fortes originals pour les texts de Buffon remain among the highest levels of achievement in the sugar aquatint technique in the history of printmaking. Equally important, "these animals have great charm: among them are a comical, scurrying ostrich, a friendly monkey extending a paw, a ram posing with great gentleness, and a cat that seems almost to purr" (Wye, p. 87). Picasso's pets delighted the "Buffon - Picasso" audience so much that this book, despite the time of the war, was sold out very quickly.
The second edition was not produced until the 1970s in lithographic technique, thanks to the approval and license of the Marina Picasso Foundation issued by Edito Service, Geneva, Switzerland, and the lithograph in question is from this edition.
The binding shown in the visuals is for illustrative purposes only and does not constitute a commercial offer.
Literature:
-Brigitte Baer "Picasso the Printmaker: Graphics from the Marina Picasso Collection," Dallas Museum of Art, 1983, p. 102.
-Deborah Wye "A Picasso Portfolio: Prints from the Museum of Modern Art, New York", 2010, p. 87
-Gary Tinterow " Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Arts. New York," Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006, p. 113).
