“Picasso suggests that as a performer in the public eye, the artist is exposed to the misunderstandings and ridicule of the masses, not unlike that experienced by Rembrandt's Christ”
—Timothy Anglin Burgard, "Picasso and Appropriation," The Art Bulletin, September 1991, pp. 492-493Picasso based this work on one of Rembrandt van Rijn's most revered etchings, Christ Presented to the People, which depicts a Biblical scene in which Jesus Christ is presented to the crowd before his cruxifixion. Picasso reinterpreted the religious scene as a secular one, depicting a theater filled with the people who had populated his life and art. Images of these figures layer upon and blend into one another in a dreamlike simultaneity, as though memories were rushing back to the artist as he looked back over his life.
Rembrandt van Rijn, Christ Presented to the People (Ecce Homo), 1655. Image: Rijksmuseum, RP-P-1975-1, Amsterdam Provenance
Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris, circa 1980
Private Collection, New YorkExhibited
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Picasso: The Last Years, March 2 - May 6, 1984 (this impression)
Literature
Georges Bloch 1865
Brigitte Baer 1870
Gert Schiff, Picasso: The Last Years, 1963-1973, cat. no 171, fig. 108, p. 58 (illustrated)Artist Biography
Pablo Picasso
Spanish • 1881 - 1973
One of the most dominant and influential artists of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso was a master of endless reinvention. While significantly contributing to the movements of Surrealism, Neoclassicism and Expressionism, he is best known for pioneering the groundbreaking movement of Cubism alongside fellow artist Georges Braque in the 1910s. In his practice, he drew on African and Iberian visual culture as well as the developments in the fast-changing world around him.
Throughout his long and prolific career, the Spanish-born artist consistently pushed the boundaries of art to new extremes. Picasso's oeuvre is famously characterized by a radical diversity of styles, ranging from his early forays in Cubism to his Classical Period and his later more gestural expressionist work, and a diverse array of media including printmaking, drawing, ceramics and sculpture as well as theater sets and costumes designs.
41
Ecce Homo, d'apres Rembrandt (Christ Presented to the People, After Rembrandt), plate 10 from 156 series (Bl. 1865, Ba. 1870)
1970
Etching and aquatint, on Rives BFK paper, with full margins.
I. 19 3/8 x 16 1/8 in. (49.2 x 41 cm)
S. 26 7/8 x 22 1/8 in. (68.3 x 56.2 cm)
Stamp-signed and numbered 40/50 in pencil (there were also 15 artist's proofs in Roman numerals), published by Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris, 1978, framed.
Estimate
$12,000 - 18,000
Sold for $11,430
Editions@phillips.com
212 940 1220
Editions & Works on Paper
New York Auction 24-26 October 2023
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