Minotaure caressant une dormeuse, from: La Suite Vollard

The bull, the minotaur and the faun were important figures in Picasso's personal imagination, which in a variety of ways personified his complex and contradictory attitude towards women. For the present two etchings (see also lot 934) from the Suite Vollard - two of the most important and desirable plates in the series - he took inspiration from Rembrandt's etching of Jupiter and Antiope of 1659, and thus linked his own imagery to Greek mythology. The motif of the 'sleeping beauty' - with the onlooker caught between the conflicting impulses of desire and the wish not to disturb the sleeper - is an ancient and timeless motif, and occurs also with the gender roles reversed, as in the myth of Endymion and Selene.