Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Femme accroupie (Jacqueline) © 2017 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Pablo Picasso’s Femme accroupie (Jacqueline), painted on October 8, 1954 will come to auction for the first time at Christie’s evening sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on November 13 in New York. From a private collection, it is estimated to sell for $20-30 million.
The brilliant primary colors in Femme accroupie (Jacqueline) illustrate a sunny day in the South of France during early autumn, 1954. Picasso and Jacqueline Roque, his ultimate paramour and eventual second wife, had begun living together in the Midi and would soon return to Paris to reside in the artist’s studio.
Jessica Fertig, head of the evening sale, said: “Picasso embarked on his late, great period, which his biographer John Richardson succinctly defined and characterized as “l’époque Jacqueline“—It is Jacqueline’s image that dominates Picasso’s work from 1954 until his death, longer than any of the women who preceded her.
Christie’s Global President, Jussi Pylkkanen, remarked: “Jacqueline was a beautiful woman and one of Picasso’s most elegant muses. This painting of Jacqueline hung in Picasso’s private collection for many years and has rarely been seen in public since 1954. It is a museum quality painting on the grand scale which will capture the imagination of the global art market when it is offered at Christie’s New York this November.”