Image: Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain
View source →The Charnel House
Pablo Picasso, 1944
Technical Details
Medium
Oil and charcoal on canvas
Dimensions
199.8 × 250.1 cm (78.7 × 98.5 in)
Style
Expressionism / Cubism
Decade
1940s
About This Work
Picasso's second great anti-war masterpiece after Guernica, The Charnel House was begun in 1944 and left unfinished. The monochromatic canvas depicts a heap of tangled bodies — men, women, and children — piled beneath a table set with food. The work was painted in response to reports of Nazi atrocities and the liberation of the concentration camps.
Begun in early 1945 as news of the Nazi death camps reached Paris, The Charnel House was Picasso's response to the Holocaust. Unlike Guernica, which was painted in a burst of creative fury, this work was labored over for months and ultimately left unfinished — as if the horror it depicted resisted completion.
Current Location
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
Keywords
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