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View source →The Blue Room
Pablo Picasso, 1901
Technical Details
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
50.4825 × 61.595 cm (19.9 × 24.3 in)
Style
Blue Period / Post-Impressionism
Decade
1900s
About This Work
Picasso places a nude woman bending over a bath inside a compressed Paris studio, where blue walls and furnishings turn an ordinary interior into an atmospheric field of reflection. The bathing figure, glimpsed rather than ceremonially displayed, brings private daily life into the painting. A Toulouse-Lautrec poster on the wall locates the scene in Montmartre and signals Picasso's engagement with the modern Paris that shaped his early career. The saturated blue already anticipates the emotional restraint and empathy of the Blue Period.
Painted in 1901 after Picasso's first Paris exhibitions, The Blue Room is among the earliest works of his Blue Period. The Phillips Collection identifies the boulevard de Clichy studio as the setting and notes the influence of Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec. Infrared study later revealed an earlier male portrait beneath the surface, evidence of Picasso's practical reuse of canvas during a period of limited means and a reminder that the painting contains multiple artistic decisions beneath its finished image.
Current Location
The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, USA
Public Collection — Open to visitors
Visit museum website →Valuation & Provenance
2026 Estimated Value
Not publicly offered
* 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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