PABLO PICASSO
Femme d'Alger .
Color lithograph, 1955. 425x275 mm; 163/4x107/8 inches, wide (full ?) margins. Artist's proof. Signed in blue crayon, lower right, and inscribed "épreuve d'etat" in pencil, lower left. Arches watermark.
Likely printed by Mourlot, Paris, as is typical of lithographs from this decade on identical or similar paper. The current work resembles the seated female figure at the far left in Picasso's Femmes d'Alger, 2ème variation , lithograph, 1955 (Mourlot 266; Reuße 663).
While Picasso signed many reproductions in intaglio, pochoir and lithography after his designs from the 1920s through the 1960s, there are no known dated prints after Picasso printed by Mourlot from the 1950s. The current print may therefore be an undescribed autograph work or, at the least, a hitherto unknown color lithograph after a design by Picasso which was never realized in an edition.