Pablo PICASSO (1881-1973)
Visage de Femme (A.R. 220)
1953
White earthenware ceramic plate painted in engobes (blue, green, white, black)
and knife engraved under glaze.
15 1/4 x 12 1/4 in. (385 x 312 mm.)
Stamped “Madoura Plein Feu” / “D’après Picasso” / “Edition Picasso’ (underneath).
Conceived in 1953 and executed in an edition of 400.
Literature:
– Alain RAMIÉ, “Picasso, Catalogue of the edited ceramic works 1947-1971”, another version ill. p.119, no. 220
Provenance: Private collection, New York.
Few subjects preoccupied Picasso as deeply, or for as long, as the human face — and in his ceramics from the Madoura workshop, he found a new way to reinvent it entirely. Visage de Femme takes the humble form of a white earthenware plate and turns it into a portrait: the features are cut directly into the clay with a knife, then filled with engobes in blue, green, white, and black beneath the glaze, so the face seems almost carved into the surface rather than painted onto it. The result is at once ancient and modern — a mask-like economy of line that recalls Iberian and African sources Picasso returned to throughout his career, reworked here in a domestic, tactile medium.
Conceived in 1953, during the most fertile years of his Vallauris ceramic period, this plate carries the full triple stamp of authenticity on its reverse — “Madoura Plein Feu,” “D’après Picasso,” and “Edition Picasso” — and is formally documented in Alain Ramié’s catalogue raisonné of the artist’s ceramic work, illustrated on page 119, no. 220. Its provenance traces to a private New York collection.
For a collector, this piece delivers everything that makes Picasso’s ceramics so sought after: instantly recognizable subject matter, the artist’s own hand in every engraved line, published scholarly documentation, and a scale that suits both serious collections and everyday display. It’s a genuine, authenticated Picasso — not a reproduction of one — at a fraction of the footprint and price of his works on canvas.