Profil de Jacqueline

In August 1946, while on holiday with Françoise Gilot at Golfe-Juan, Pablo Picasso visited an exhibition of local crafts in Vallauris. The ceramic works from the Atelier Madoura in town caught his eye, and he asked the owners Georges and Suzanne Ramié for the opportunity to try his hand at the medium. So began, quite by chance, Picasso's enduring love affair with ceramics and his celebrated collaboration with the Ramiés, which lasted for more than two decades.
Picasso first met Jacqueline Roque in the summer of 1952, at the Atelier Madoura. Paris-born Jacqueline was then a 25-year old divorcée and her cousin Suzanne had offered her a job as a salesperson in the atelier’s retail shop. Stationed at the table nearest the entrance, Jacqueline quickly caught Picasso’s eye. Gilot later recalled, “I wasn’t with Pablo very often when he went to the pottery and he undoubtedly saw Jacqueline Roque and talked with her more often than I might have imagined at the time” (F. Gilot, Life with Picasso, New York, 1964, p. 358).
When Gilot decided to leave Picasso in September 1953, he and Jacqueline grew closer. Early in the summer of 1954, they both accepted an invitation from Comte de Lazerme to spend several weeks at his property in Perpignan. Douglas Cooper, John Richardson and Roland Penrose were also invited. “I soon realized that Jacqueline would be the perfect consort for Picasso,” Richardson recalled. “Exceedingly submissive where Picasso was concerned, she was, in other respects, a free spirit. Also, she had fallen passionately in love with him and was out to convince him she was the one” (Picasso, The Mediterranean Years (1945–1962), exh. cat., Gagosian, London, 2010, pp. 18 and 21). After a long and tumultuous holiday in Perpignan, Picasso and Jacqueline went home to Vallauris as a couple, marking the beginning of his late, great period, which Richardson succinctly defined as “l’époque Jacqueline.” The following year, they moved in together at La Californie, the iconic late nineteenth-century villa overlooking the Mediterranean in Cannes, just five miles away from the Atelier Madoura. Picasso asked for Jacqueline's hand in 1961 and they remained happily married until his death in 1973.
By the time Picasso executed the present work on 22 January 1956, he had been making ceramics for a full decade, and his collaboration with the Ramiés was as fruitful as ever. In Jacqueline de profil, Picasso carved his muse's classic Mediterranean profile into a large clay plate for the first time. Her long neck, sharp jawline, edged cheekbone and thin nose are elegantly defined in a series of straight lines, which contrast with the curves of her exceedingly large eye, soft eyebrow and voluminous jet black hair. Only visible at the top of her head, the rest of her hair is covered by a summery headscarf, which Picasso painted yellow, green and blue, matching her collar. The edge of the scarf framing the crown of her head is adorned with a swirling pattern, while the rest is decorated in a series of contrasting perpendicular and parallel lines. The scarf comes together in bow, tied behind Jacqueline's ear, adding to the overall femininity of the portrait.
Picasso chose to paint the plate’s background black but leave Jacqueline’s skin bear, partially highlighting both in glaze. Perhaps a nudge to Renaissance portraiture, Jacqueline’s alluring porcelain skin and Greek profile shine against the plate’s darker backdrop. Jacqueline de profil also resembles other Picasso portraits of her from this period, such as Jacqueline aux mains croisés in the Musée Picasso in Paris, painted a year and a half earlier—depicted in profile, crouching, she is similarly rendered with sharp angular features, linear patterns and contrasting colors.
Picasso was so pleased with Jacqueline de profil that he had the Ramiés make two editions from it—one in simple white earthenware clay and another in terracotta. The present lot is a rare unique version of Jacqueline de profil, painted by Picasso in January 1956, when he conceived of the plate's original design. In the last two decades, only three other unique plates depicting Jacqueline have been offered at auction, one in 2004, a second in both 2015 and 2017, and a third in 2018, each making well above $200,000. One of the finer examples, Christie’s is honored to offer the present work as the highlight of its Picasso Ceramics auction this fall.