Paris (AFP)

The Picasso Museum in Paris, the largest collection in the world of the works of the painter Pablo Picasso, has eight unpublished works by the master, donated by his daughter, Maya, to France, by means of a donation.

Entitled "Child with a pacifier sitting under a chair", it probably represents Maya as a child, hidden under the furniture, as a dark omen of the coming world conflict, explained Olivier Widmaier Picasso, grandson of Picasso, present at the conference press alongside his sister Diana.

It is part of the family collection ceded to the museum by the first daughter that Picasso had with Marie-Thérèse Walter, met in 1927, and announced on Monday.

Personal collection of the artist transmitted to his descendants, it includes six paintings, two statues, including one made by Picasso in 1945 (La Vénus du Gaz) and another, Polynesian, typical of anthropomorphic sculptures of the Marquesas Islands of the 19th century (tiki ), which the artist kept like totems in his studio, as well as a sketchbook.

The oldest of the paintings in the collection is a classic portrait of Picasso's father, "Don Jose Ruiz", himself a painter, and dating from 1895. The most recent, cubist, "Tête d'Homme", was produced during summer 1971, in the last phase of Picasso's work.

Beside them, a "Study for a Mandolin Player" in black and white in charcoal and oil (1932), a portrait of Emilie Marguerite Walter (known as "Mémé"), Picasso's mother-in-law, an oil and pencil on canvas dating from 1939;

"El Bobo", cubist oil inspired by the Dwarf by Vélasquez and dating from 1959 and a sketchbook including several studies for the "Déjeuner sur l'Herbe", inspired by Edouard Manet, whom Picasso admired.

- "Endless world" -

All these works "allow to inform in an unprecedented way the work of Pablo Picasso", underlined Mrs. Bachelot, who said her "deep emotion (...) to celebrate the entry into (the) national collections" of this set.

"It is a great joy to see the national collection enriched but when it comes to Picasso, the flagship artist of modernity whose work constitutes a world that seems inexhaustible, this joy is obviously twofold" , she added.

The donation, a transaction that allows Maya Ruiz-Picasso to pay her inheritance tax in kind, is "one of the most important in recent decades", according to the minister who said she measured "the scope of this exceptional event ".

These new works join the collection of those, already innumerable, housed in the Picasso Museum since 1985. They will be presented in their entirety to the public from April 2022.

The total amount of the collection was not specified, the ministers arguing for tax secrecy.

The Picasso Museum was mainly constituted by two founding donations granted by the heirs of Pablo Picasso, in 1979 and in 1990, then by works kept by Dora Maar, the painter's lover for ten years between 1935 and 1945, then, through donations or bequests from relatives and friends of the painter as well as through State purchases, more restricted due to the very high cost of the artist's works (1881-1973).

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