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Artwork · 1901 · Genre painting

Child with a Dove

Pablo Picasso
1901 · Oil on Canvas
Private collection
★ 5.2 editorial score

A small child stands clasping a white dove to its body, a brightly colored ball at its feet, the figure simplified into soft, rounded forms against a plain ground. Picasso painted Child with a Dove early, just as his palette was cooling toward the melancholy blues to come. Now in a private collection, it is a tender, almost sentimental image of childhood and innocence - the dove a quiet emblem of peace and gentleness - marking the young Spaniard, not yet famous, on the cusp of the great Blue Period that would soon define him.

Movement
Blue Period
Subject
ChildBirds

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Other media onSubject·Birds
Quote · 1977

“There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to out-carol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain.”

Colleen McCullough