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Literature regarding this artwork: Brigitte Baer, Picasso the Printmaker: Graphics from the Marina Picasso Collection, Dallas Museum of Art, 1983, no. 34, p. 71 (ill.); Brigitte Baer, Picasso the Engraver: Selections from the Musée Picasso, Paris, Thames and Hudson, London, 1997, no. 51, p. 54 (ill.); Ingrid Mössinger/Beate Ritter/Kerstin Drechsel, Picasso et les Femmes, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Cologne, 2002, p. 181 (ill.).
The technique employed by Picasso in this print is fairly unique. The image was drawn only the copper plate with Marie-Thérèse’s nail polish, worked with a wooden stick, and allowed to harden. The plate was then emmersed in the acid bath allowing the background to be bitten, the nail polish stopped out design remaining untouched. The plate was allowed to remain in the acid bath long enough for the background to be fairly deeply bitten to produce a relatively dark tone when inked and printed while the design itself remained in relief.
