Pablo Picasso (Spanish/1881-1973)
Madera Ceramic Pitcher
Picador (A.R. 162)
Incise 'EDITION PICASSO MADOURA'
Partially glazed painted terracotta
Height: 5 1/4 inches
Width 3 1/2 inches
Length (with handle): 4 1/4 inches

Terre de faience pitcher, 1952, from the edition of 500, incised 'Edition Picasso' and 'Madoura', partially glazed and painted earthenware.

Provenance: Estate of Dolores Alton
The first Prell Shampoo model, Dolores Alton (nee Famularo, 1927-2019) was born and raised in New Orleans. As an actress she would live in Chicago, performing at Second City, and was contracted as an ingenue for 20th Century Fox Studios. She studied in Vermont and NY, eventually moving to the Pioneer/Happy Valley in Western Massachusetts. Dolores spent considerable time in France and Italy, for work and culture. As a co-owner of Beaufield Homes (based in Louisiana), she was a conservationist engaged in sustainable housing. As a collector, her interests ranged from archeology to modernism to vernacular art. She would befriend the spiritualist, musician and visual artist Sister Gertrude Morgan of New Orleans' Gentilly and the Lower Ninth Ward, collecting a significant body of her work. Several Morgan paintings from Alton's collection were shown in the 2005 retrospective exhibition and illustrated in the book: Tools of Her Ministry of Sister Gertrude Morgan.

In June of 2012 Christie's London (Live auction 4232) held a two day wide ranging Madoura sale of Picasso ceramics. Many of these achieved record prices. Picasso had direct involvement in the limited edition ceramic art made at Madoura. Although Picasso had worked with clay starting in the mid 1940s, he was more engaged with the material from the mid 1960s on. The Madoura works in our sale are from Picasso's period of heightened interest in clay, when he decided to direct more of his creative energy to this medium.