Early Picasso Bullfight Oil

Picasso’s painting of The Wounded Matador is important both because of its quality and subject and because it is one of the earliest, and perhaps the earliest, of Picasso’s Bullfight-related paintings. It is significant because he stopped signing his work as Ruiz Picasso in 1878 when he was seventeen years old. It has a WWII Nazi wax seal on the canvas indicating that it was seized by the Germans and subsequently repatriated. There is a separate signed sketch on paper attached verso. It too has a Nazi stamp. It is not known who attached the sketch to the canvas or when it was done. This painting is one of several in the seller’s collection that were sourced from Venezuela after the Chavez revolution to provide funds for its previous owner’s relocation. Nothing is known of its earlier provenance. Note: an investor may be willing to take a minority interest with the purchaser having sole possession if the possessor will agree to have it forensically analyzed and sold when Sotheby’s begins accepting forensics evidence as proof of authenticity in lieu of today’s requirement of a perfect provenance.