A striking portrait of Pablo Picasso’s young daughter, Paloma, ‘L’enfant à l’orange (Child with an Orange)’ (1951), offers a rare glimpse into the artist’s renewed focus on his family in the early 1950s and his embrace of a joyful and uninhibited style in his late practice.

‘L’enfant à l’orange’ presents the one-year-old Paloma enthroned in an armchair in a rare full-length seated portrait, a pose typically reserved for Picasso’s most important subjects, such as Marie-Thérèse Walter, Dora Maar, and Paloma’s mother, Françoise Gilot. The beautiful detail accorded to the scalloped edge of her dress, the plaid fabric, and the frilled neckline demonstrate Picasso's care in depicting his beloved child.

In the early 1950s, Picasso’s oeuvre was marked by the disparate pulls of his public-facing image and the sanctuary of his blossoming domestic life. ‘L’enfant à l’orange’ belongs to an important group of portraits that emerged from these twin demands, many of which centre on Paloma.

Picasso carefully highlights Paloma’s sweet innocence as she smiles shyly, holding an orange beguilingly out to the viewer. To emphasise her youth, the walls and floor surrounding her are marked with daisy-like drawings and childlike scribbles, as if the infant Paloma had found her way into her father’s studio and helped herself to some crayons. 

This important painting, which highlights Picasso’s brilliance as a portraitist, was owned by Paloma’s brother Claude for over three decades. The work has been exhibited at seven international institutions, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.