Pablo PICASSO The Frugal Meal - 1913 Etching and scratching on zinc imprimĂŠe on VĂŠlin van Gelder 64.5 x 49.7 cm per sheet 46,3 x 37,7 cm per image Printed by Fort Ădition Vollard Ă 250 copies in 1913 Baer 2 II b - Bloch 1 Etching and scraper on van Gelder paper 25,39 x 19,57 in. (paper) 23,62 Ă 17,72 in. (image) ŠSuccession Picasso 2025 Provenance: Christie's New York sale, 2 November 2016, lot 139 Acquired auprès de cette dernière by the current propriĂŠtaire The story begins in 1904, the young Pablo Picasso is not yet the greatest artist of his siècle, this myth inseparable from the world's artistic and cultural heritage. At the age of just 23, Picasso, a young dĂŠbutant artist and maĂŽtre in the making, crĂŠĂŠ his first masterpiece of engraving ÂĹ The Frugal Meal Âť marking the dĂŠbut of a prodigious careerère as an engraver, the greatest of the 20th century (more than 2,000 prints). The first? No, because in 1899 Ă Barcelona, he dĂŠbute with an engraving sobrebrement intitulĂŠe ÂŤ El Zurdo Âť (The Left-Handed Man) Ĺuvre naĂŻve, quasi primitive of which only one copy remains. He did not rĂŠitèrera lâexpĂŠrience until five years après later, at the instigation of his friend and painter Ricard Canals, who taught him that a simple mĂŠtal point could be used to engrave. Thus began the career of this insatiable engraver on a zinc plate borrowed from the artist Julio GonzĂĄlez without mĂŞme erasing the landscape sketched by the latter (upper right-hand section), thus exĂŠcutting the masterpiece which was printed in only a few copies in 1904. Without any prior training, he composed one of the most striking Ĺ works of his ÂŤ pĂŠblue Âť period, in a large format, with uncanny skill. Ambroise Vollard, cĂŠlèbre galeriste and art dealer, who exhibitedĂŠ Picasso dès 1901, achète and procède Ă lâaciĂŠrage zinc plates. In 1913, the merchant ĂŠdite, the sequel to Les Saltimbanques, to which the frugal meal is added (Bloch 1 Ă 15). This taciturn couple, imbued with a certain tactile tenderness, single-handedly crystallises ère's social misère and profound intĂŠternal suffering. It is Madeleine, Picasso's lover, who is represented here; the male figure is unknown, but can be found in a sketchbook from 1903. InĂŠluctuatingly, this engraving engenders a feeling of mĂŠlancoly tĂŠoignant to the artist's fragileĂŠ emotional state and his vulnĂŠrabilitĂŠ ĂŠ at the time. Picasso wanted to be tĂŠmoin of a misère that accompanied him and inhabited him on a daily basis. Its marvellous state of preservation makes it a rare and prĂŠcieuse engraving, Ă in more ways than one. TheĂŠlĂŠgante finesse of this masterpiece rĹalisalisĂŠ by a novice whose name will live on in history takes us to the prĂŠmices of crĂŠation: the birth of an exceptional engraver. Pablo PICASSO