This 1930 engraving depicts a nude woman seated with her legs folded beneath herself. She is adorned with a crown of flowers and appears to be wearing more around her neck. Signed by Picasso in gray pencil in the lower right-hand margin, it is part of a series of 100 engravings commissioned by art dealer Ambroise Vollard produced between 1930 and 1937, a pivotal period in the artist’s career prior to the production of Guernica (1937), the monumental work that renewed the genre of history painting.
This engraving was bequeathed to the museum at the end of 1998, or beginning of 1999, following the death of Mrs. Odette Eymann, a local woman who had built up an important collection that consisted mainly of engravings. Eymann worked at the Cité du Livre with Charles Chautems, the manager of the cooperative bookshop in Le Locle who later served as a curator at the Musée des Beaux-Arts from 1971 to 1987. Chautems contributed significantly to the museum’s development.
More than just a bookshop, the Cité du Livre was a vibrant cultural center, hosting conferences, literature courses and exhibitions. Chautems frequently travelled to Paris to buy engravings, which he sold at the bookshop. Some works in the museum’s collection were purchased there, including an Alberto Giacometti lithograph.
Upon Eymann’s death, her previously unknown collection of around 200 pieces was bequeathed to the museum, including the lithograph Adam et Eve chassés du paradis by Marc Chagall. An exhibition titled Regard sur une collection (2000) was dedicated to her.
Etching, inv. 4347
