Three women at the well
| Three women at the well (Trois femmes à la fontaine) |
|---|
| Pablo Picasso , 1921 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 203.9 x 174 cm |
| Museum of Modern Art, New York
Link to the picture |
Three women at the fountain is the title of an oil painting by the Spanish painter Pablo Picasso from 1921, created in Fontainebleau near Paris . The painting is in the neoclassical style and is currently part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York under the title Three Women at the Spring .
description
On the large-format painting, three powerful women are depicted in relief like sculptures, designed like ancient goddesses; they look thoughtful, averted from the viewer. They are wrapped in white sleeveless dresses, the neckline of which reveals a breast in two women, the one standing on the left and in the middle. The woman on the right, half turned away from the viewer, is sitting on a boulder, her right open hand forming the center of the picture. The woman's hand on the left outer edge holds a jug with a handle, other jugs are on a boulder in the middle and above the right figure. The middle woman is leaning against a ledge, her right open hand seems to want to grab the jug in the middle. Her left arm supports her head. The background and the floor of the painting are held in different shades of brown.
history
From May to September 1921, Picasso stayed with his wife Olga and their son Paolo, born at the beginning of the year, in Fontainebleau, where important artists worked centuries ago who made the gallery of Francis I world famous. Picasso rented a house near the Fontainebleau castle and looked out for walks in the nearby park, which was built by Napoleon III. had been commissioned to build a small fountain, from whose artificial rocks water flowed in cascades into a basin. This Greek stela from the 4th century BC BC, frescoes that he had seen on a trip to Italy in 1917, for example in Pompeii and Herculaneum , as well as Nicolas Poussin's painting Eliezer and Rebecca at the fountain from 1648 gave Picasso inspiration for his monumental painting. Numerous studies of this work exist as sketches and in oil. One study was auctioned on November 6, 2008 for $ 722,500 at Christie's .
In the same year Picasso painted two versions of Three Musicians in Fontainebleau in the style of synthetic cubism .
Provenance
The painting came to the art collector John Quinn , New York, through the mediation of Henri-Pierre Roché in 1922 , and remained with his heirs after his death in 1924 until 1926. At that time it was acquired by the art dealer Paul Rosenberg . From 1940 to 1948 it had different owners and was donated to the Museum of Modern Art , New York in 1952 by Allan D. Emil and his wife .
literature
- Siegfried Gohr : Pablo Picasso. Life and work. I do not search, I find . DuMont Literature and Art Verlag, Cologne 2006, ISBN 3-8321-7743-4
Web links
- Museum of Modern Art , accessed September 5, 2010
Individual evidence
- ^ Siegried Gohr: Pablo Picasso. Life and work. I'm not looking, I find , p. 87 f
- ↑ christies.com : Auction on November 6, 2008
- ↑ See web link Museum of Modern Art
