The making of Picasso's 'Woman in a long dress'

A recently discovered letter from Picasso to Paul Eluard makes it possible to reconstruct the history of 'Woman in a long dress', one of the few bronze sculptures that the artist made and had cast in wartime Paris. The letter suggests a new date for the sculpture, one of Picasso's earliest found-object assemblages, and raises questions about its interpretation. The sculpture is one of four pieces Picasso made and is known to have had cast in bronze during World War II. The earliest documented reference to Woman in a long dress is in a letter Picasso wrote to Paul Eluard on Nov 3, 1941. As will be discussed, the sculpture has also been interpreted as an image of the artist himself.