Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Picasso drew this scene on the reverse of a large business card belonging to Sebastià and Carles Junyer Vidal, his close friends in Barcelona in the early 1900s. The two brothers had inherited a yarn shop from their uncle, and Picasso spent countless convivial evenings there, gossiping with the proprietors and sketching on whatever paper he found at hand. He filled at least three dozen of their sturdy trade cards with drawings, sometimes rehearsing the wretched figures that populated his Blue Period canvases during this period, other times creating sardonic parodies of contemporary types or scenes of overt sexuality to entertain and titillate his friends.

In the present work, Picasso depicts and injured matador being escorted out of the plaza de toros by two picadores. As a child, Picasso went to bullfights regularly with his father, and his obsession for bulls and the corrida remained with him all his life and appeared in his works throughout his career.