Focus on Young Girl with a Flower Basket and explore the Significance and legacy.
Young Girl with a Flower Basket has been described as a "masterpiece, depicting a statuesque nude with a melancholy expression". The art historian John Richardson described the subject as a "sultry looking gamin", while the painting's former owner, Gertrude Stein complained that the girl has "feet like a monkey".Gertrude eventually learned to appreciate the painting, describing it in 1909 as, "a solid thing, a charming thing, a lovely thing, a perplexing thing, a disconcerting thing, a simple thing, a clear thing, a complicated thing, an interesting thing, a disturbing thing, a repellent thing, a very pretty thing."
Marc Porter, Chairman of Christie’s America, summarised the painting's significance and legacy.Picasso, the greatest artist of the 20th century, saw our future in 1905 when he painted Fillette à la corbeille fleurie. She represents the themes that Picasso would wrestle with for his life — love, sex, beauty, tenderness, violence — and all that defines humanity. In this masterpiece, Picasso reveals his singular brilliance in a timeless, mesmerising goddess gazing on the universe.
John Richardson Gertrude Gertrude Stein