Madame Canals [Benedetta Bianco]

Italian model Benedetta Bianco (1870–1958) regularly posed for famous French artists such as Degas, Renoir and Bartholomé. She married Ricard Canals, a Catalan painter who had settled in Paris and whom Picasso had met in Barcelona. The friendship between the two artists was consolidated when they met up again in the Bateau-Lavoir in 1904, and Canals and Benedetta would share many an evening with Picasso and his partner Fernande Olivier, as recalled by the latter in her memoirs. Picasso tells us that Canals introduced him to engraving, and one of the works he made that same year was the exceptional etching entitled "The Frugal Repast" (MPB 110.011), one of the six prints of which is also part of the museum’s permanent collection.
Picasso’s portrait of Benedetta was produced at the same time as Canals, who had specialised in Spanish folklore motifs, created the work entitled "At the Bullfight" (private collection, Barcelona) that represented Benedetta and Fernande wearing mantillas. A photograph of the two women taken around the same time gives some idea of the clothes and set that Canals reproduced in his composition. Benedetta’s intense gaze is the most remarkable feature of Picasso’s markedly classical portrait. The delicate lines of the face and neck of the fair-skinned model emphasise her beauty. Light touches of colour – pink for the cheeks and mauve for the flower in her hair – stand out amid the black mantilla, the pale green dress and the heterogeneous yellow background. The sitter's face is framed by her slightly ginger hair, pulled back, and the mantilla covering her shoulders and chest.
The composition is inspired by traditional Spanish portraits and evokes the typology of figures in Picasso’s previous works, characterised by their slenderness. Ricard Canals was the first owner of the portrait. In 1919 the work was displayed at the Fine Art Exposition in Barcelona and was subsequently acquired by art collector Lluís Plandiura.