Picasso´s work: Mermaid Pitcher (1957)

The work Mermaid Pitcher (Cántaro Sirena) is a terracotta composite piece in the shape of a mermaid with a thick curved handle, made in 1957. It is decorated with metallic oxides and engobe, a clay paste that gives it a smooth, glazed surface.

It was in 1947 that Picasso took up the art of ceramics. The artist presented his first pieces in 1948 at the Maison de la Pensée in Paris. For Picasso, ceramics meant the discovery of a new material repertoire that allowed him to experiment with the forms of traditional clay - which the artist reinterpreted and transformed - integrating sculpture and painting. In his ceramic pieces he recovered themes he had previously treated - the circus, the painter and the model, portraits, still lifes and landscapes - with others linked to nature and the animals of his immediate environment.