This portrait of Jacqueline Roque, Picasso's second wife and muse, forms part of a great series of linocut portraits (Bloch 1063-1082) which the artist created of Roque between 1961-62 with Master Printmaker Hidalgo Arnéra. Here, Picasso adheres to the fundamental modernist principle of respecting the flatness of the picture plane and reconfigures Roque's face as a composite of simultaneous, multiple views of her head. Picasso captured Roque's likeness more than any other figure in his long career causing Hélène Parmelin, a close friend of Picasso during the late years, to once observe: 'She invades everything. She becomes all characters. She takes the place of all models of all the artists on all the canvases. All the portraits resemble her, even though they may not resemble each other. All the heads are hers and there are a thousand different ones' (Picasso: Intimate Secrets of a Studio at Notre Dame de Vie, New York, 1966, pp. 14-15).

Linocut in colours, 1962, on watermarked Arches paper, signed in pencil, an artist's proof (Baer records 3-4 such impressions), aside from the standard edition of 50, printed by Imprimerie Arnéra, published by Galerie Louise Leiris, 75.3 x 62 cm. (29¾ x 24½ in.)

Bloch 1069; Baer 1303, third state of three B.b (of B.b.)