40 - Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) – Dove Flying Toward the Rainbow. 1952. Printer: Mourlot. Original color lithograph on untrimmed Arches paper, with full margins. Signed and dated on the plate. Counter-signed and dated with an inscription in India ink in the lower right corner: “For Madame Palet, a tribute from Picasso.” Sheet size: 55x76.5 cm. Excellent condition, fresh colors.

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) – Dove Flying Toward the Rainbow. 1952. Printer: Mourlot. Original color lithograph on untrimmed Arches paper, with full margins. Signed and dated on the plate. Counter-signed and dated with an inscription in India ink in the lower right corner: “For Madame Palet, a tribute from Picasso.” Sheet size: 55x76.5 cm. Excellent condition, fresh colors. Reference: Bloch 712. This print is one of two hundred copies printed on this paper. Madame Palet founded the Cours Maintenon in Cannes, a school and boarding school for girls where the artist’s children attended. Picasso has been inextricably linked to the image of the dove of peace ever since one of his lithographs was used on the poster for the 1949 World Peace Congress, even though what is actually depicted is a pigeon. This is an opportunity to recall that his work as a draftsman is not limited to Cubism alone. In 1952, the French Communist Party asked Picasso for six drawings from which to select an illustration for the poster of a party convention. This image was among the proposed designs but was rejected; Picasso had his art dealer print it as a lithograph. It was used much later, in 1960, for the “Peace and Disarmament” poster, in the hope of nuclear disarmament, in connection with the conference scheduled to take place in Paris between the leaders of the United States (Dwight Eisenhower), the USSR (Nikita Khrushchev), Great Britain (Harold Macmillan), and France (Charles de Gaulle).