THE WARSAW MERMAID (SYRENKA WARSZAWSKA) 1950 signed + dated: original ink drawing on paper

THE WARSAW MERMAID (SYRENKA WARSZAWSKA) 1950

Signed & Dated by Pablo Picasso

Original art drawing on paper (17 cm x 21 cm)

The original form of this image was first drawn by Picasso upon a wall in Warsaw in 1948, as a peace symbol after World War 2. About 4 years later an elderly local Polish resident objected to it and Picasso's "Peace Mermaid" was washed off and painted over by the local council. In the meantime Picasso had committed the image for posterity onto this piece of paper, signed and dated 4th September 1950.

A genuine artwork by the 20th Century's great master, this peace symbol of the Warsaw Mermaid Syrenka in Polish, while in English she is Sabrena. Curiously the Latin name Sabrina was paralleled in Celtic Britain as Savren (Havren), the princess whose life ended in the river Severn, which then tok its name from her. As she voluntarily ended her days in the deep waters of the Severn in preference to being executed for no crime other than being her father's daughter, so the Mermaid theme, which Picasso adopted from a Polish myth, seems to be ever attached to the name Sabrena.

Picasso was Spanish born but lived most of his life in Paris, France. It is assumed this drawing was committed to paper in Paris after Picasso had returned from Poland. Estates may hold a record of his completion of SYRENKA (as the Polish express her name) or as SABRENA, on 4th September 1950.

Condition: no tears to paper but top left section does have light marks (possible foxing, see photo) of yellow paper. Picasso was not always worried about cleanliness and tidiness, sometimes even re-using a sheet of paper on the other side to create a new drawing. Hence it is possible the paper was like this when Picasso drew the image. See photos.

Photos: the paper is not yellowed by age, but has a yellowish tint. Picasso used this colour tinted paper for many drawings, presumably pulling it off a large roll in his studio. It is noted when he used this paper for art the depth is always about 21 centimetres, as here. My camera has made the paper appear whiter in some photos, but it is the same yellowish paper that Picasso commonly used in the 1940's and 50's.

Provenance: Purchased from an elderly art collector who bought the drawing in the 1980's along with others from an art dealer in Barcelona. The signature is committed in the artist's noted style, underlined with a slanting line as he often did.