The
earliest record of a possible treatment comes from
1907, when Leo Stein, a friend and early collector
of Picasso's work, recalled that he "had
some pictures relined and [Picasso] decided that he
would have one of his pictures too treated like a classic,
though in reverse order—he would have the canvas
lined first and paint on it afterwards. This he did
on a large scale, and painted a composition of nudes
of the pink period, and then he repainted it again
and again and finally left it as the horrible mess
which was called, for reasons I never heard, the Demoiselles
d'Avignon (Stein, Appreciation, p.
175)." Picasso meant "classic" in the
sense of Old Master paintings, which were lined,
as a routine treatment,
with another canvas adhered (usually with glue) to
the reverse of the original canvas, and
the edges of the now-reinforced canvas covered with
paper tape. Stein may have been referring to another
painting since, although Les Demoiselles d'Avignon has
definitely been lined (probably in 1924), the evidence
indicates that the lining occurred after the paint
was applied and dry.
There is evidence that the painting
was rolled prior to any lining, with the painted
side facing in. Evenly
spaced, parallel vertical cracks visible in the painting,
especially near the top edge, attest to this method
of transporting the large canvas before it had the
additional support of the lining canvas [see: Vertical
Cracks]. The cracks likely resulted from the
rolled painting having
been compressed, crushing the paint along the crease
of the fold. As Picasso moved his studio six times
between 1907 and 1924, such rolling would almost certainly
have occurred before
the painting was sold to Doucet.
Pictured at top:
Photomicrograph of cracked
and lost paint encompassing an area of less than one
square inch of top right figure's
left eye.
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