Staff at Barcelona’s Picasso Museum received quite a surprise when they discovered a new charcoal drawing by Pablo Picasso.
The drawing was discovered while the team was removing the cardboard backing behind one of the artist’s oldest works, a portrait of his mother, created by Picasso when he was 15. Behind it, they found a charcoal drawing of a man with a pipe which has never been seen before.
Reyes Jimenez, head of restoration at the museum, believes that this newly found work is even older than the portrait it was hiding behind which was painted in 1896.
‘If it were the other way round, he would have destroyed the pastel drawing at the time of producing it,’ Jimenez told The Olive Press.
Jimenez further stated that this newly discovered work gives us a deeper insight into the artist’s talent, noting that the skill of the drawing indicates that he adopted difficult artistic techniques from a young age.
‘His level of knowledge was greater than we thought it was,’ she said.
Since making the discovery, staff have named the drawing ‘Figure with pipe.’ Museum director Bernardo Laniado-Romero believes that the work, which appears to copy an 18th century Flemish engraving, may have been done as an exercise while Picasso was undertaking artistic training.
Despite his death in 1973, experts continue to make discoveries about Picasso’s life and work. Just recently, it was revealed that the master used common house paints for some of his work. One thing is for sure, however, and that is that Picasso remains as popular as ever. An exhibition at Swansea’s Taliesin Arts Centre featuring an exhibition of Picasso prints is currently bringing in big crowds while auction houses are reveling in the high prices paid for works by the Spanish artist. As ArtsHub recently reported, Picasso’s portrait of his mistress Marie-Therese Walter sold for 28.6 million pounds ($AU45 million) at a Sotheby’s auction last month.
Barcelona’s Picasso Museum, where the new Picasso work was discovered, contains 921 works by Picasso, donated to the museum by the artist himself. Experts will continue to investigate the new work to determine more about its origins and how it came to be found behind the portrait of the artist’s mother.
