The greatest of Picasso's many studies of weeping women, this picture was executed four months after Guernica, developing the theme of the grief-stricken victim.

Roland Penrose, who purchased the painting from the artist as soon as it was painted, wrote of the work in his biography of Picasso: 'The result of using colour in a manner so totally unassociated with grief, for a face in which sorrow is evident in every line, is highly disconcerting. As though the tragedy had arrived without warning.'

Provenance

Antony Penrose.


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