The model for this famous lithograph was Françoise Gilot, Picasso's lover and muse from 1943-1953. The painter's affair with the 21-year-old coincided with a return to lithography at the end of 1945, after a 15 year break from the medium. Inspired by his new romantic interest, Picasso threw himself into an intensive period of experimentation, radically adapting traditional lithographic methods and inventing new ones. The artist quickly mastered the medium, and in 1948 produced his great series Femme au Fauteuil, depicting Gilot seated in an armchair, wearing a coat he had bought for her on a visit to Warsaw. The print is hence also known as Le Manteau Polonais. Picasso had intended to make a large lithographic portrait in five colours, printed from five separate plates, but was dissatisfied with the results of the colour printing. Abandoning his original idea, he worked on the five zinc plates as distinct images, developing his subject through successive states and numerous proofs. While in the other prints from the series Picasso abstracts his lover's features, in this iteration he tenderly portrays Gilot's youthful, pretty face, capturing something of what the photographer Brassaï described as Françoise's 'freshness and restless vitality'.
Gaston Tutin, to whom this fine Bon à tirer proof once belonged, was one of the master printer's in the legendary Parisian printshop of Fernand Mourlot. In his book Souvenirs et Portraits d'artistes (Paris and New York, 1972), Mourlot recalls Picasso's first day at the atelier:
'At the printer's, I lecture Tutin, the old pressman - whom I chose to work with Picasso; he's a champion of litho, a most capable printer. Picasso arrives, determined, as if for a fight. And here he is in front of the press, me next to him. He pulls out of a cardboard box cut-out papers coated with litho ink, badly glued, with fingerprints. Father Tutin looks on, I guess he is assessing the difficulty of the task... the work begins. I have never witnessed such a demonstration of manual skill; each of the pressman's gestures is useful and precise: the litho paper adheres well to the stone, the transfer tape inks well, the first proof is the correct one. Pleasant feeling for me. "I have another one," said Picasso. Same motive, same punishment. Tutin repeats his demonstration: same magnificent result. We have, that day, I think, astonished our host. But it will be him, in the end, who leaves us in awe of his accomplishments.'