This rare early print is one of 12 signed impressions printed by Delâtre in 1905, before the plates were purchased and steel-faced by dealer Ambroise Vollard to enable larger print runs. The acrobats’ athleticism stands in marked contrast to the gaunt figures of Picasso’s Blue period, revealing a shift in tone that characterises the more contented scenes of the Rose period. These figures emanate poise, a touch of defiance, and maturity beyond their apparent youth. Picasso’s resources were limited so he repurposed a disused plate, and traces of the previous composition, alongside Picasso’s own revised lines, are visible in the background.

Emblematic of the cross-fertilisation of ideas across media, for which Picasso is widely known, the boy with the scarf appears in some gouaches from the same year: Two acrobats with a dog, from a private collection, and Young acrobat and child, held in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s collection, New York. Picasso once confessed, ‘When I begin a series of drawings . . . I don’t know whether they’re going to remain just drawings, or become an etching or a lithograph, or even a sculpture’.