The artist, sold to; Leo Stein (1872–1947) and Gertrude Stein (1874–1946), Paris;(1,2) Gertrude Stein, Paris, from 1913, bequeathed 27 July 1946 to; Alice B. Toklas (1877–1967), Paris, sold in 1947 to;(3) Georges E. (1896–1998) and Edna Horn (1902–1982) Seligmann, New York (sale, New York, Sotheby’s, 4 November 1982, lot 13, to);(1,4) [Coe Kerr Gallery, New York, purchased for]; A. J. Perenchio (1930–2017), Los Angeles, gifted 2025 to; Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Footnotes
(1) Alice B. Toklas–signed letter written in 1947 on the stationery of the Hotel Continental in Paris at 3 rue de Castiglione, confirming the provenance of this work, affixed to the backing: “Drawing in pen and ink on white paper. Size 95⁄8 × 127⁄8˝. Large head seen in three quarter view facing left on page. Face is modeled, shoulders sketched. / This drawing is from the collection of Gertrude Stein who bought it directly from Picasso./ Alice Toklas.” Additional details appear in Sotheby’s, New York, Seligmann sale, 4 November 1982, preface. Two other Picasso drawings with the Stein-Toklas-Seligmann provenance are in the Hegewisch Collection at the Hamburger Kunsthalle.
(2) The American writer Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo, an art critic and collector, assembled one of the most important art collections in Paris. The two split the collection in 1913, largely over the directions in which the avant-garde was headed.
(3) Alice B. Toklas met Gertrude Stein in Paris in 1907, and the two quickly became friends, remaining inseparable companions until Gertrude’s death in 1946. In 1933 Stein penned her own autobiography, titled The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, and while the book centers around Stein, Toklas’s character and humor is abundantly clear. When Toklas died in 1976 she was buried beside Stein at Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris.
(4) The Paris-born Manhattan art dealer Georges E. Seligmann was a member of the Paris Seligmann art dealer family. Along with his father, Simon, his uncles Jacques and Arnold Seligmann started their business in Paris in 1879, later expanding to London and New York. With the outbreak of World War II in France, Georges, who had joined the family business in Paris, relocated to New York in 1940 to work in the New York branch of the Jacques Seligmann Gallery. Later in 1949 Georges opened his own gallery, which operated until his retirement in 1971. He married Edna Horn Mandel in 1946.
