Le Bain, from: La Suite des Saltimbanques

Picasso first encountered the wandering acrobats of Paris on the Place des Invalides in 1904. The lives of the so-called saltimbanques, who had performed in the squares of Paris since the 15th century, paralleled that of bohemian artists, as they too lived vicariously by their art. Despite the harsh reality of their impoverished existence, Picasso portrayed them with an almost otherworldly grace in intimate scenes of family life, portraits and theatrical tableaus.

Very few impressions from La Suite des Saltimbanques were printed at the time of their creation in 1904-05 and a proper edition was only issued in 1913 after the plates had been purchased by the art dealer Ambroise Vollard. Before printing the edition, he had the plates steel-faced, a process whereby they were electroplated with a thin layer of steel, hardening them so that they could be printed in larger numbers. As a consequence the etched lines lose depth and the plates print less strongly, losing much of the subtleties and nuances of the images. It is only in the early impressions before steel-facing that the beauty of these prints can be fully appreciated.

Impressions before steel-facing of Le Bain are amongst the rarest of the series. According to Brigitte Baer only a small number of impressions were printed by Delâtre in 1905, and she records only three examples, one of which is in the collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art (unsigned). According to our records no other early impression has been offered at auction in the last three decades.