Picasso at Madoura: A Ceramic Bird Captured in Mid-Flight

At the Madoura Studio in Vallauris, Provence, Picasso created an iconographic repertoire steeped in antiquity, including the Gros oiseau vert (Large Green Bird) vase specially designed for Georges and Suzanne Ramié. Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Gros oiseau vert (Large Green Bird) vase, white earthenware, engobe decoration, engraved with a knife, hand painted, 25 copies, Madoura and Édition Picasso stamps, “exemplaire éditeur” hand inscribed inside the neck, h. 57 cm/22.44 in, w. 44 cm/17.32 in. Estimate: €130,000/160,000 Birds—owls, eagle-owls, doves of peace and golden eagles—are the zoomorphic hybrid creations that show up most often in Pablo Picasso’s paintings and sculptures. In the late 1940s, under the kind eye of his owl Ubul,