Restaurant Chez Félix. Pablo Picasso confirms the date (1906) and signs the drawing "La coiffure (Fernande) (Étude)". Cannes 1958. The present work has a fascinating provenance. In 1936, it was received by Barbara Bagenal as a gift from her admirer, Saxon Sydney-Turner, who had purchased it from the legendary Zwemmer Gallery in London. Barbara, an artist herself and wife of Nicholas Bagenal, moved in Bloomsbury circles with Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey, Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell. Pablo Picasso had originally left the drawing unsigned but, as a 1958 note from Clive Bell attached to the backboard explains: "On February 1958. I took Mrs Bagenal to lunch with Pablo Picasso [in Cannes]. Madame Roque, Pablo Picasso, Mr Duncan and his wife made up the party. I spoke of the drawing. (.) On seeing it Pablo Picasso exclaimed "Dieu que c'est beau". He confirmed the date (1905) and signed the drawing with his 1958 signature. 'That will be a puzzle for art-historians some day', said he. 'To save art-historians trouble I have written this note'" (cf. Sotheby's London, #443, L04010, 22.6.2004).

At the restaurant Chez Félix in Cannes, Pablo Picasso leans forward to examine his 1906 drawing, “La coiffure (Fernande) (Étude)”. Beside him, the drawing's owner, Barbara Bagenal, smiles warmly. The 1958 meeting was arranged so Picasso could authenticate the work, which he had left unsigned decades earlier. After confirming the date and exclaiming, "Dieu que c'est beau," he added his contemporary signature, remarking that the discrepancy would "be a puzzle for art-historians someday."

Artworks:

"La coiffure (Fernande) (Étude)", 1906. Sotheby's London, 22.6.2004

Abbreviations: see Bibliography

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Filename:

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