Image: Artwork image rights managed by holding institution; source link provided
View source →La source
Pablo Picasso, 1921
Technical Details
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
64 × 90 cm (25.2 × 35.4 in)
Style
Neoclassicism
Decade
1920s
About This Work
A reclining woman in a white tunic appears beside a vessel pouring water into an Arcadian landscape. The broad, calm arrangement and carefully simplified forms give the scene an antique, theatrical composure. The urn and water turn the image into an allegory of renewal and continuity, while the model’s stillness keeps the symbolism anchored in a human presence. Picasso uses classicizing clarity not as an escape from modernity but as a different way to organize emotion, memory, and the body.
Moderna Museet dates La source to 1921, identifies the figure as Olga Khokhlova, and notes that the scene invokes Arcadia, Pan, nymphs, and life-giving water. Made shortly after the birth of their son Paul, the painting joins personal biography to a classical vocabulary of fertility and renewal. Its controlled composition exemplifies Picasso’s postwar Neoclassicism, a period in which he returned to monumentality and antique references while continuing to make highly personal images. The documented holding collection is Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden; its direct institutional object record (https://sis.modernamuseet.se/objects/3865/la-source) is retained as the factual source for the catalog entry and its provenance trail.
Current Location
Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
Public Collection — Open to visitors
Visit museum website →Collection record status
Live institutional record fetched.
Source-linked entry contains a provenance or acquisition statement; full ownership-chain claims remain limited to the cited institution.
Image access: Permission required.
Valuation & Provenance
2026 Estimated Value
Public collection / market value not asserted
* 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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