The Chinese Chest of Drawers (Primary Title)
(La Commode Chinoise) (Translation)

Pablo Picasso, Spanish, 1881 - 1973 (Artist)

1953
Spanish
Oil on panel
Unframed: 58 × 45 in. (147.32 × 114.3 cm)
Framed: 64 × 51 in. (162.56 × 129.54 cm)
83.43
Picasso, one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, was also by the 1950s one of the most well known. Photo essays in Life magazine, a full-length film, and retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Grand Palais in Paris were devoted to the artist and his work. Picasso had long since departed from the hard abstraction of Analytic Cubism, however, this painting—though decorative in tone—retains the broken forms and skewed perspective that are characteristic of Picasso’s oeuvre.
Signed upper right: "Picasso"
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon
2019-2020: "Van Gogh Monet Degas, The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts", Palazzo Zabarella, Padua, Italy, October 26, 2019 - March 1, 2020

2019-2021: Van Gogh, Monet, Degas, and Their Times: The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN, February 2 - May 5, 2019; Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS, April 4, 2020 - January 10, 2021

2018-2019: "Van Gogh, Monet, Degas: The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts", The Frick Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, March 17 - July 15, 2018; Oklahoma Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, June 22 - September 22, 2019
©artist or artist’s estate

Curator’s Talk: The Reinstallation of the Mellon Collection
1:14:33

The collection of European paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts given by Paul and Rachel Mellon constitute an essential facet of the museum’s identity. Dr. Sylvain Cordier, Paul Mellon Curator and Head of the Department of European Art, discusses the reinstallation of the Mellon Collection.

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