Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso 1881-1973

N04720 Jeune Femme en Chemise (Girl in a Chemise) c.1905

Inscribed 'Picasso | 05' b.l.
Oil on canvas, 28 5/8 x 23 5/8 (72.5 x 60)
Bequeathed by C. Frank Stoop 1933
Prov: With Galerie Kahnweiler, Paris (purchased from the artist 1909); with Alfred Flechtheim, Berlin; C. Frank Stoop, London, c.1911-12
Exh: Moderne Kunst Kring. Internationale Tentoonstelling van moderne Kunst, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, October-November 1911 (98) as 'Tête de Jeune Fille'; Works by Pablo Picasso, Leicester Galleries, London, January 1921 (8) as 'Jeune Femme', lent by Frank Stoop; The CAS: Second Loan Exhibition of Foreign Paintings, M. Knoedler, London, February 1928 (43) as 'Portrait in Profile'; Thirty Years of Pablo Picasso, Lefevre Gallery, London, June 1931 (7); Picasso, Galeries Georges Petit, Paris, June 1932 (31) as 'Portrait de Jeune Femme'; Kunsthaus, Zurich, September-October 1932 (31); Re-opening Exhibition, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, October-December 1933 (597, repr.); Picasso, Tate Gallery, July-September 1960 (22, repr.); Hommage à Pablo Picasso, Grand Palais, Paris, November 1966-February 1967 (22, repr.); Picasso, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, March-May 1967 (7, repr.)
Lit: J.H. Johnstone, 'La Collection Stoop' in L'Amour de l'Art, 1932, p.201; Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso (Paris 1932), Vol.1, No.307, repr. pl.138 as 'Femme à la Chemise'; Georges Boudaille, Pierre Daix and Joan Rosselet, Picasso 1900-1906 (Neuchâtel 1966), No.XII.5, p.258 repr.
Repr: John Rothenstein, The Tate Gallery (London 1958), p.135 in colour

This picture is inscribed [19]05, but D.-H. Kahnweiler said that the original photograph in his files bears the date 'autumn 1904'. The picture did not enter his possession, however, until 1909. The same model appears in other works of this time, including a drypoint (also showing her in profile to the right), which is dated on the plate February 1905 (Geiser, 1933, No.5). In a drawing dated 1904 and a painting in gouache dated 1905 (Boudaille et al., Nos.D.XI.26 and XII.4), she is seen feeding a baby, while in the present work one of her breasts is bared, possibly for this purpose. She also seems to appear in several other gouaches and prints of 1905 accompanied not only by the baby but by a man dressed as a harlequin or an acrobat, who is evidently the father, in the setting of a circus tent (e.g. 'The Harlequin's Family' and 'Family of Acrobats with a Monkey', Boudaille et al., Nos.XII.6 and XII.7).

An installation photograph of the Moderne Kunst Kring exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, in October-November 1911 shows this picture hanging on the wall among other works by Picasso and Braque. As Frank Stoop, who was of Dutch origin, is said to have acquired it about 1912, it is possible that he bought it from this exhibition.

Although it has often been known as 'Femme à la Chemise', it appears in the Kahnweiler records as 'Jeune Femme en Chemise.'

Published in:
Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.592-3, reproduced p.592