Artwork reproduction

Grande baigneuse

Picasso's monumental 1921 seated nude — Antiquity exaggerated rather than copied — the Walter-Guillaume collection's clearest statement of the postwar return to order.

Created: 1921
Medium: Oil on canvas
Collection: Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris

Pablo Picasso

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What the painting shows

A monumental seated female nude, wrapped at the hips in drapery, on a canvas nearly two meters tall and barely one wide. The museum's notice describes massive sculptural proportions that recall the canons of Antiquity while exaggerating them — a figure crowded by her own frame. The signature and date sit at the lower right: Picasso/21.

The record preserves the picture's earlier lives in its alternate titles: Baigneuse de Bernard, La Géante, plain Nu. La Géante — the giantess — is the one the eye believes.

The return to order

The Orangerie reads the painting as Pablo Picasso's contribution to the postwar return to order, the turn back toward the old masters that ran through Paris after 1918. His sources here, the museum says, were Greek and Roman Antiquity along with Ingres and Renoir, worked into 'a strange style of Classicism' of distorted bodies and solid, heavy faces — an Antiquity transcended and idealised rather than imitated. Derain, the collection's other pillar, was traveling the same road at the same time.

For the painter of Cubism to produce this in 1921 was not a retreat. It was the same appetite for form, redirected at the classical past.

Guillaume's late acquisition

Paul Guillaume acquired the painting after 1930, near the end of his life, and the museum notes it was 'meticulously conserved' by his widow Domenica Walter. It came to the state in the 1963 purchase, with the Société des Amis du Louvre, and hangs in the collection's room 8, 'Les Arts à Paris' — named for the review Guillaume published.

Timeline

1921
Painted and signed 'Picasso/21'.
After 1930
Acquired by Paul Guillaume, late in the dealer's life.
1963
Purchased by the French state from Domenica Walter with the Société des Amis du Louvre.

Frequently asked questions

What is Picasso's Grande baigneuse?

A monumental seated nude painted in 1921, 182 by 101.5 centimeters, now in the Walter-Guillaume collection at the Musée de l'Orangerie. It belongs to Picasso's postwar return to classical sources.

Why does the figure look so heavy and sculptural?

The museum reads the painting as part of the return to order: Picasso drew on Greek and Roman Antiquity, Ingres, and Renoir, exaggerating classical proportions into distorted bodies and solid, heavy faces rather than copying them.

How did the Grande baigneuse reach the Orangerie?

Paul Guillaume bought it after 1930; his widow Domenica Walter kept it, and the French state purchased it from her in 1963 with the help of the Société des Amis du Louvre.

Is the Grande baigneuse still in copyright?

Yes. Picasso died in 1973, so his works remain in copyright in the EU through 2043. The reproduction shown here is reduced in size and displayed under fair use for commentary.