Denys Sutton, Picasso, Peintures, Epoques Bleue et Rose, Paris, 1955, pl. IX (illustrated)
Pierre Daix and Georges Boudaille, Picasso: The Blue and Rose Periods, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, 1900-1906, Greenwich, 1967 no. XIV.9, p. 287 (illustrated)
Paolo Lecaldano, L’opera complete di Picasso blu e rosa, Milan, 1968, no. 237, p. 106 (illustrated)
Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso Supplement aux Années de 1903 à 1906, vol. XXII, Paris, 1970, no. 236, p. 85 (illustrated)
Josep Palau, Picasso: The Early Years, 1881-1907, New York, 1981, no. 1199, p. 435 (illustrated)
Picasso und seine Sammlung, exh. cat., Munich, 1988, p. 232

At the dawn of the 20th century, in the heart of Montmartre, Pablo Picasso lived and worked in the bohemian enclave of the Bateau-Lavoir. It was here that he transformed—absorbing influences, challenging tradition, and reshaping artistic expression into something entirely his own.

From this period of restless reinvention emerged Jeune Garçon nu à cheval (1906), a rare and extraordinary painting from the artist’s Rose Period. With its warm palette and delicate formal language, the painting radiates an optimism that contrasts sharply with the introspective melancholy of the preceding Blue Period.

The subject here of a young man and his horse carries profound significance for the young Picasso, and will find its ultimate expression in his great masterwork of the Rose Period, Boy Leading a Horse (1905–06), now held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. We see here the genesis of a lifelong fascination for the artist with the relationship between man and beast.

Beneath the surface, a secret lingers: an earlier Blue Period composition, hidden beneath layers of transformation, reveals a portrait of a woman. The painting’s significance is further underscored by its connection to L’Abreuvoir (The Watering Place) (1906), an ambitious, unrealized composition that Picasso explored through multiple studies (the most complete of which is now housed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

Jeune Garçon nu à cheval is one of only two known oil paintings associated with this theme—and the only one still in private hands.