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Lot Essay
In early 1966, while convalescing in his home in Mougins from surgery he had undergone the previous November, Picasso reread Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers. He had just begun painting again, and before long a new character entered his work, the musketeer, or the Spanish version of the 17th century cavalier, the hidalgo, a rakish nobleman skilled with the sword and daring in his romantic exploits. The brave and virile musketeer became a stand-in for the artist, who was now able only to travel locally and whose own vaunted sexual powers were on the wane. It may seem odd in 1970 that the greatest living artist should retreat into a world of "backward-looking romantics and nostalgic dreamers" (M.L. Bernadac, Late Picasso, exh. cat., The Tate Gallery, London, 1988, p. 82), but in addition to their personal association, they provided Picasso a pretext to indulge in his love of Rembrandt, Velázquez and other great painters of the Baroque.
During the next few years there was among Picasso's paintings a proliferation of portraits of men in elegant little beards and long wavy hair, clad in 17th century doublets and ruffled collars. Many, such as the present painting, powerfully proclaim their Spanish heritage in the artist's use of the national colors of blood red and golden yellow. The nobleman shown here has a regal bearing, and is seated on a high-backed chair with finials that would indicate special status. Picasso was perhaps thinking of Velázquez's late portraits of Philip IV of Spain. The large-eyed stare of this subject is no doubt meant to reflect the famously powerful gaze of the artist himself.
Like many of the artist's late works, the musketeers were done in series, like variations on a theme. Picasso found this method especially useful when exploring old master subjects. It was an effective means of probing and re-interpreting a style or manner, and the repeated appearance of these subjects demonstrates the playful way in which the artist liked to project his own personality and fantasies into these characters from the past. For the artist, now in his eighties, the act of painting had become more important than the finished picture. Picasso mentioned how he took special pleasure in the "the movement of the painting, the dramatic effort from one vision to the next, even if the effort is not carried through I have reached the stage where the movement of my thought interests me more than the thought itself." (quoted in op.cit., p. 88).
During the next few years there was among Picasso's paintings a proliferation of portraits of men in elegant little beards and long wavy hair, clad in 17th century doublets and ruffled collars. Many, such as the present painting, powerfully proclaim their Spanish heritage in the artist's use of the national colors of blood red and golden yellow. The nobleman shown here has a regal bearing, and is seated on a high-backed chair with finials that would indicate special status. Picasso was perhaps thinking of Velázquez's late portraits of Philip IV of Spain. The large-eyed stare of this subject is no doubt meant to reflect the famously powerful gaze of the artist himself.
Like many of the artist's late works, the musketeers were done in series, like variations on a theme. Picasso found this method especially useful when exploring old master subjects. It was an effective means of probing and re-interpreting a style or manner, and the repeated appearance of these subjects demonstrates the playful way in which the artist liked to project his own personality and fantasies into these characters from the past. For the artist, now in his eighties, the act of painting had become more important than the finished picture. Picasso mentioned how he took special pleasure in the "the movement of the painting, the dramatic effort from one vision to the next, even if the effort is not carried through I have reached the stage where the movement of my thought interests me more than the thought itself." (quoted in op.cit., p. 88).