Pablo Picasso’s Jacqueline au Bandeau, 1962, a linocut on Arches wove paper, signed and numbered. It is a striking portrait of Jacqueline Roque, Picasso’s second wife and final great muse, who inspired an extraordinary number of works during the last two decades of his life.

The composition presents Jacqueline’s head and shoulders, rendered in bold black lines against a warm ochre-brown ground. Her hair, tied back with a band (the bandeau of the title), flows in stylized arcs down the sides of her head. Her facial features are characteristically Picasso: fragmented, exaggerated, and asymmetrical. One eye is wide and almond-shaped, the other circular and simplified, producing a tension between intensity and abstraction.

Her expression is both enigmatic and monumental. Picasso flattens the portrait into a mask-like image, but the bold graphic contrasts imbue it with vitality and psychological presence. The simplicity of the forms, reduced to essentials, demonstrates Picasso’s ability to achieve expressive power through minimal means.

By 1962, Picasso had mastered the linocut reduction process, which required carving and printing successive layers from the same linoleum block. This challenging method left no margin for error, but it allowed Picasso to explore color and form with directness and boldness.

Here, however, he opts for a two-tone palette: earthy brown and black. This stark limitation enhances the monumental quality of Jacqueline’s portrait, transforming her into an icon. The use of Arches wove paper provides a smooth surface, allowing the dense blacks to print with clarity and strength.

Jacqueline Roque was not only Picasso’s wife but also his most enduring muse, appearing in more works than any of his previous partners, including Françoise Gilot, Dora Maar, and Marie-Thérèse Walter. In Jacqueline au Bandeau, she is presented with both intimacy and grandeur, embodying the duality of personal affection and archetypal femininity.

Her role in Picasso’s late career cannot be overstated: Jacqueline offered him stability, devotion, and an endless source of inspiration. Through her, Picasso explored themes of love, timeless beauty, and the eternal dialogue between artist and muse. This portrait, with its mask-like quality, aligns her with both classical ideals and modernist abstraction, elevating her image into an enduring symbol.

Jacqueline au Bandeau (1962) is a linocut on Arches wove paper by Pablo Picasso, signed and numbered. The work portrays Jacqueline Roque, Picasso’s final muse and lifelong companion, with bold black lines on an ochre-brown ground. Rendered in the artist’s late abstracted style, the portrait reflects both personal intimacy and monumental timelessness. As Jacqueline became the subject of countless paintings, drawings, prints, and ceramics, this linocut exemplifies her central role in Picasso’s late oeuvre, capturing her not only as a beloved individual but also as a universal muse.