Image: Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain
View source →Acrobat on a Ball
Pablo Picasso, 1905
Technical Details
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
147 × 95 cm (57.9 × 37.4 in)
Style
Post-Impressionism
Decade
1900s
About This Work
One of the most celebrated works of the Rose Period, this large canvas juxtaposes a delicate young acrobat balancing on a sphere with a massive, immovable male figure seated on a cube. The contrast between fragility and solidity, movement and stillness, youth and age is rendered in the warm rose-pink palette that defines this phase of Picasso's career.
Painted during Picasso's fascination with the Cirque Medrano in Paris, which he visited regularly with friends including Guillaume Apollinaire. The circus performers — acrobats, harlequins, and saltimbanques — became the central subjects of the Rose Period, representing the marginalized artists and outsiders with whom Picasso identified.
Current Location
Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, Russia
Public Collection — Open to visitors
Visit museum website →Valuation & Provenance
2026 Estimated Value
Priceless / Not for sale
* Estimates are based on comparable auction results and market analysis. Not a formal appraisal.
Last Known Sale
No public auction record — held in permanent museum collection
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