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The Harem, 1906
 
 
Image of Pablo Picasso<br><I>The Harem, </I>1906 <br>Oil on canvas <br>163.20 x 120 x 6.10 cm <br>The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. 1958.45 <br>© 2006 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Pablo Picasso
The Harem, 1906
Oil on canvas
163.20 x 120 x 6.10 cm
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. 1958.45
© 2006 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Pablo Picasso
The Harem, 1906

The Harem depicts a group of young women bathing and combing their hair. They are accompanied by an old procuress and a muscular eunuch who suggestively handles a porró, a traditional Catalan vessel for drinking wine directly from the spout.

The composition unites personal elements with Picasso's fascination with Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres's painting The Turkish Bath, exhibited at the Salon dAutomne of 1905.

Why the woman with raised arms has a less idealized, even monstrous appearance remains unclear. This painting established an important precedent for Picasso's Desmoiselles dAvignon, begun in late 1906 after he returned to Paris from Gósol.

Page 6 of 21 | On the next page: Josep Llimona
Grief, 1907