Homme dévoilant une Femme. (Man uncovering a woman).

Pablo Picasso. 1881-1973. 
Homme dévoilant une Femme. (Man uncovering a woman). 1931. Drypoint. Bloch 138; Baer 203 B.d. Vollard Suite, plate 5. Printed by: Lacourier, Paris. Published by Vollard. From the edition of 250 on petit papier vergé Montval paper. Total Edition 310. Good condition apart from mat burn and 3 unobtrusive foxing spots in the lower left-hand margin. A rich impression with drypoint burr, printed on laid paper countermarked 'Vollard', on the full sheet with deckle edges on three sides. Annotated with the Baer number '203' in the lower left-hand margin. Signed 'Picasso' in pencil by the artist. Housed in a striking 28 1/2 x 23 1/2-inch modernist stepped gold leaf frame. 

The image shows the artist uncovering his lover, Marie-Thérèse Walter.

In 1930 Picasso was commissioned to produce the etchings by the art dealer and publisher Ambroise Vollard in exchange for paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Paul Cézanne. It took the artist six years to deliver the final etched copper plates to Vollard. It took a further two years for the printmaker Roger Lacouriére to finish printing the 230 full sets, but the death of Vollard in 1939 and the Second World War meant that the sets only started coming onto the art market in the 1950s.

The Vollard Suite reflects Picasso's interest in the themes of Rembrandt and the artist at work, wild depictions of the mythical Minotaur, and, perhaps most famously, Picasso's relationship with his muse and mistress, Marie-Thérése Walter.