Boy with a Pipe

A young Parisian boy in blue holds a pipe and wears a garland of roses, set against a flowered ground in the warm, tender tones of Picasso's Rose Period. The mixture of street-urchin reality and dreamy, almost classical sweetness gives the picture its gentle, enigmatic charm. Now in a private collection after selling for a then-record price, Boy with a Pipe is among the most beloved works of the period - the harsh blue melancholy giving way to rose-tinted tenderness, an ordinary boy crowned with flowers and lifted into quiet poetry.