Thank you for your enquiry
We will be in touch shortly.
Pablo Picasso
La Célestine
One of Picasso’s rarest prints, the entire series of 66 etchings for La Célestine on a single large sheet. One of only nine impressions.
Etching and sugar-lift aquatint, printed by Editions Crommelynck on yellow tinted Rives paper. In excellent condition with deckle edge on four sides.
Sheet size: 75 x 105 (cm); 29 ½ x 41 ¼ (inches)
This impression is signed Picasso and dated Le 9.9.70 in red crayon, numbered 4/9.
[Provenance: Given by Picasso to Paul Puaux – Director of the Festival d’Avignon from 1971-79].
The sixty-six etchings illustrate the tragi-comedy La Celestina by Fernando Rojas, a masterpiece of Spanish literature. It tells the amusing story of how the bachelor Calisto used the procuress Celestina to arrange an affair with Melibea, a young woman kept in seclusion by her parents.
…during the printing of these etchings for the book, Picasso had the idea of making an impression of all the 66 plates on one sheet.
Patrick Cramer
Pablo Picasso: The Illustrated Books
Printing only nine impressions of this work makes it a unique experiment in printmaking combining Picasso’s mastery, Rojas’ humour and the technical skill of the master printers, Aldo and Piero Crommelynck.
Brigitte Baer states that each of the 9 prints are dated 9.9.70. She cites the following impressions:
1 dedicated to Zette and Michel Leiris
1 dedicated to Jacqueline
3 in the artist’s collection of which 1 is in the Picasso Museum (1/9)
2 given to Aldo and Piero Crommelynck
The remaining impressions were kept by the artist as gifts.
The impressions of the plates that form the group of works for the Célestine present themselves as a sort of puzzle. They fit together, side by side, forming a rectangular composition. They are not in chronological order or in the order included in the book but an order that creates an impression of a tour de force.
Brigitte Baer
Picasso Peintre-Graveur
La Célestine: Baer 1523-1779; Cramer 149; Bloch 1507; 1529; 1540; 1541; 1558; 1559; 1563; 1564; 1573-1576; 1581-1583; 1587,1588,1592,1593,1596-1603, 1605-1607, 1616, 1617, 1635-1637, 1648-1650, 1654, 1655, 1657, 1658, 1661, 1664, 1665, 1668, -1670,1690, 1691, 1694, 1727, 1729, 1733, 1749, 1751, 1754, 1762
To see full details of the work please click here.
Price on application
For any enquiries please email gallery@simsreed.com
t: +44 (0) 20 7930 5111
Sims Reed Gallery
43A Duke Street
St. James’s
London SW1Y 6DD
David Hockney
David Hockney Will Come
3rd - 24th October 2023
Online Exhibition
Ana Andreeva
IN CONTEXT
10.07.2023 - 10.08.2023
Joan Miró: Works from Album 19
8th March - 5th April 2022
Henry Moore
Sculptural Ideas
3rd February - 3rd March 2022
Sam Francis
Poèmes dans le Ciel (Poems in the Sky)
17th January - 21st February 2022
Allen Jones
A Fleet of Buses
1st November - 26th November
Online only
Pop Art in Print
2 - 30th August 2021
Online Exhibition
Aaron Kasmin
Always a Show
16th September - 28th October 2021
Gerald Laing
Reclining Figure Relief Painting
Viewing Room
Chihuly
22nd July - 5th September 2021
Online Only
Henri Matisse
Jazz
20th May - 13th June 2021
Online only
Eileen Cooper
Nights at the Circus
4th March - 14th May 2021
Henry Moore
The Art of Poetry
26th January - 26th February 2021
Online Only
Curated highlights from Emily Tobin
Ring out, wild bells
10th December 2020 - 2nd January 2021
Online only
Ellsworth Kelly
Back to Nature
27th November - 20th December 2020
Online Exhibition
Declan Jenkins
Cinema of lava, cinema of mercury
12th November - 13th December 2020
Online Exhibition with Highlights at the Gallery
Paula Scher
All Over the Map
9th October - 8th November 2020
Online Exhibition
Howard Hodgkin
Colour Poems
28th August - 30th September 2020
Online only
