Two sheets with India ink sketches, dated by Picasso on November 1, 1947 in their upper left-hand corners, include a large number of drawings in different sizes. Some are scratched out and reworked, showing a variety of designs for vases and jugs, most with feet; others are composed by joining spherical and ovoid shapes, as some kind of late variations of the Échassier form (Figs. 20, 24). Most of these sketches develop new shapes: in the lower section of the first sheet, we find three prefigurations of the Zoomorphic Pot, reproduced in the special Picasso issue of Cahiers d’art in 1948[1] (Fig. 21). It is a wine pitcher painted white, glazed and patinated.
In the case of the Cavalier, the typical Provençal wine pitcher is reinterpreted with a painting of a human figure on a rearing horse (Fig. 22). Picasso painted the horse with a black slip covering the entire surface of the ovoid body and completed it with incisions underlined in white. The cavalier is actually a female figure: the two dots painted in black and circled in white can be interpreted as breasts. The torso is represented by the pitcher’s neck, and the head by a painted face, whereas the legs and spurred feet are painted on the body of the vessel. At the lower end of the handles, brown and black brushstrokes against a white ground depict the hands, which grasp the body of the vase as if they were clutching invisible reins.
At the bottom of the other sheet dated November 1, 1947 (Fig. 24) we see a sketch anticipating the “centaur” (Fig. 25). It is a hybrid sculptural assemblage of utilitarian elements set on a base, resembling a vessel whose ovoid body is mounted on stem-like handles representing the creature’s legs. Its shape was developed in the drawings dated July 29, 1947, and particularly in the sketch located in the second row on the right (Fig. 6).
As with his Fauness, with this centaur Picasso created a sculpture in which a small vase set on its back and a circular handle indicate a hypothetical function as a vessel, which had probably been conceived in the draft stage (Fig. 24). However, this function is not actual; it remains iconic and devoid of any utilitarian purpose in the context of a sculpture mounted on a base which, in addition, was also produced in two bronze versions (Fig. 25).
On the same sheet with the sketches of the centaur, on the left we see a small preparatory study of a Bird vase from 1947-48, with its large ellipsoid handle and its long curved spout representing the neck and the head of the animal, painted in a paraffin resist, slip and enamel (Fig. 26).
[1] Cahiers d’Art, XXIII/1, 1948, p.18. See also the Picasso et la Méditerranée exhibition catalogue, op. cit., cat. 141.
India ink on paper.
Private collection.
© Succession Picasso 2020.
India ink on paper.
Private collection.
© Succession Picasso 2020.
Turned white terracotta wine pitcher, painted with slip, underglaze and patina.
Private collection.
Photo credit: Maurice Aeschimann
© Succession Picasso 2020.
Wine pitcher in turned white terracotta, painted with a black, green and brown slip and engraved on a white enamelled ground, under glaze.
Private collection.
Photo credit: Maurice Aeschimann
© Succession Picasso 2020.
Bronze. Private collection.
© Succession Picasso 2020.
Chinese ink. Private collection.
© Succession Picasso 2020
White terracotta, engobes, paraffin, underglaze. Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte, Madrid
© FABA Photo: Eric Baudouin
© Succession Picasso 2020.
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Summary