Pablo Picasso — Le Ballet
Text by Boris Kochno
Publisher: Hachette / Arts du Monde, Paris
Year of publication: 1954
Typography, text & binding: Georges Lang, Paris
Printer of illustrations: Mourlot Studios, Paris
Format: approx. 31.7 × 22.4 cm
Paper: offset
Condition: Mint copy
Description
Le Ballet is an important mid-20th-century illustrated book documenting Pablo Picasso’s long-standing engagement with dance, movement, and theatrical form. The text was written by Boris Kochno, poet, critic, and former secretary of Serge Diaghilev, one of the central figures of the Ballets Russes.
Published in 1954, the book brings together visual and literary contributions celebrating ballet as a modern art form, with Picasso providing one of the key graphic statements of the volume.
Illustrations
The book contains:
1 original transfer lithograph by Pablo Picasso
Subject: Danseuse
Printed by Mourlot
Image size approx. 29.4 × 18.5 cm
Executed in four colors (yellow, blue, violet, and green) using lithographic pencil and scraper
Printed on report papers passed to stone
This lithograph serves as the frontispiece of the book and represents one of Picasso’s most elegant and lyrical dancer compositions of the 1950s.
In addition, the volume includes:
18 color plates (“pochoirs” in earlier literature), comprising high-quality color lithographic illustrations by Picasso, as well as contributions by Matisse, Miró, Toulouse-Lautrec, Laurencin, and other artists associated with the history of ballet.
Edition Details
Print run: 10,000 copies
The Picasso lithograph Danseuse was printed specifically for this publication as a book frontispiece
A separate deluxe issue of the same lithograph exists in a very small edition (outside the scope of this copy)
Catalogue References
Cramer: no. 68
Reuße: no. 656
Mourlot: no. 259
Bloch: no. 767
Orozco: Picasso – 70 Years of Book Illustration, no. 141
Condition
Complete copy
Fresh pages, clean margins
No foxing or staining
Original red publisher’s binding preserved
Overall condition: mint
Significance
Le Ballet occupies a distinct place within Picasso’s illustrated book production, combining an original Mourlot lithograph with a broader collaborative homage to ballet and modern stage art. The Danseuse frontispiece is a fully recognized original lithograph, catalogued across all major Picasso graphic references, and reflects the artist’s mature synthesis of line, movement, and color during the early 1950s.
