Le repas frugal (The frugal meal) marks Picasso’s first significant venture into printmaking and is today widely regarded as the final great work of his 'Blue' period. It portrays a sombre scene in which a pair of saltimbanques share a modest meal of bread and wine. Their elongated, entwined limbs imply a bond formed through shared hardship, yet the couple seem emotionally remote; their hollow faces and rigid postures contrast sharply with the vivacity typically associated with the circus. The influence of sixteenth-century Spanish master El Greco is evident in the figures’ attenuated forms; Picasso also looks to French artist Toulouse-Lautrec’s portrayals of quotidian Paris life. These qualities suggest the work denotes a bridge between the artist’s Spanish past and his French future.

Picasso originally turned to printmaking for its commercial potential; financial strain even prompted him to reuse a zinc plate that previously held a landscape by Joan González (1868–1908), a fellow Spanish artist living in the Bateau-Lavoir. However, the plate was not fully scraped down beforehand, and faint traces of González’s work are visible as tufts of grass in this image’s upper-right corner.