PICASSO PABLO: (1881-1973) Spanish Painter. An extremely rare three colour proof for artist or printer of Portrait ...

PICASSO PABLO: (1881-1973) Spanish Painter. An extremely rare three colour proof for artist or printer of Portrait de Jacqueline (''Jacqueline´s Portrait'') by Picasso, 12th April 1956, signed and inscribed by Picasso to the bottom left corner to his friend and artist Manfredo Borsi `Pour mon cher Borsi, son ami, Picasso´ (''to my dear Borsi, his friend, Picasso''). The present copy being almost certainly one of the proofs for artist or printer done in 1956, offered to his colleague, and therefore do not bear the number of the one hundred numbered lithographs signed by the artist. The three colour drawing being black, blue and brown. The signature and inscription being in red pencil, the first underlined in red and blue pencil. The present document size being in full 19.8 x 26,1, (50,2cm x 66,4cm), while the drawing portrait and date sizes are 15.3 x 20.4, (39cm x 52cm). VG £5000-8000 Portrait de Jacqueline (''Jacqueline´s Portrait'') is a lithograph by Picasso, done in Cannes, on 4th December 1956. Portrait de Jacqueline was initially intended as a poster for the Picasso exhibition ''Un demi siècle de livres illustrés'' (''Half a century of picture books'') at the Matarasso Gallery in Nice, 21st December 1956 to 31st January 1957. At the last moment, Picasso started over and executed a second magnificent three colour portrait of Jacqueline. Picasso worked right side out in lithographic crayon on three zincs which Matarasso brought to him. The run was executed on an offset press in Marseille, which explains why the image and the date are right reading, whereas in a non-offset lithograph run the printing would be reversed. A few proofs were done for the artist and printer in various colours. A hundred impressions of the lithograph Portrait de Jacqueline numbered and signed by Picasso were issued. Jacqueline Roque (1927-1986) Second wife of Picasso 1961-73 until the artist´s death. Jacqueline Picasso killed herself by gunshot in 1986 when she was 59 years old. A muse and source of inspiration of Picasso who created over 400 portraits of her. Pablo Picasso met Jacqueline in Vallauris, French Riviera, in 1953, she was 26 years old and he was 72. He romanced her by drawing a dove on her house in chalk and bringing her one rose a day until she agreed to date him six months later. They married in 1961. It is likely that Picasso's series of paintings derived from Delacroix´s The Women of Algiers was inspired by Roque. The artist commented that `Delacroix had already met Jacqueline´. After Picasso's death in 1973, Françoise Gilot, Pablo´s companion 1943-53, and mother of his two children, contested the will in favour of Roque on the grounds that Picasso was mentally ill. Provenance, the present document was offered by Picasso to his friend Manfredo Borsi in 1957 during a visit of the last to Picasso in Vallauris, and has been kept since by Borsi´s wife family Bianca Valentini Borsi, belonging today to her sister by inheritance. Manfredo Borsi (1900-1967) Italian Painter, Ceramicist and Lithographer. Borsi was graduated in the Florence academy of Arts, specialized in enamel ceramics. Borsi met Picasso in the 20´s in Paris and both became friends. Both moved to the south of France, Picasso to Vallauris, while Borsi moved to St Paul de Vence. Accompanied by a certificate issued and signed by Claude Picasso confirming that the lithograph is authentically signed and inscribed by Picasso. IAA Europe are indebted to Salvador Bonet, Archive Information Officer of the Museum and Natal House of Pablo Ruiz Picasso, and to their Archive Department for their assistance with the present lot.