Jeune prostituée et "mousquetaire". 1968.
Etching and aquatint.
Baer 1673 B b (of C). Bloch 1656. Signed and numbered. Dated in the plate (mirror-inverted). From an edition of 50 copies. On wove paper. 20.6 x 14.7 cm (8.1 x 5.7 in). Sheet: 34,7 x 28 cm (13,6 x 11 in).
Printed by Crommelynck, Paris. Published as sheet 144 from the series '156 gravures' by Edition Louise Leiris, Paris 1978. [EH].

Two years before his death, Picasso, at the old age of 90, addressed the theme of his old god Eros in a series of etchings, which are documents of a surprising technical mastery. A slight moan about the loss of his virility is obvious. A cycle of 347 etchings from 1968 is the best proof. It is all the more astonishing how the old magician visualized desire in these later etchings. A poised graphic talent combined with an almost inexhaustible imagination that gets ever more creative variants out of this much rendered subject comes on top