Provenance
Philippe II, duc d'Orléans [1674-1723], Paris; by inheritance to his son, Louis, duc d'Orléans [1703-1752], Paris; by inheritance to his son, Louis Philippe, duc d'Orléans [1725-1785], Paris; by inheritance to his son, Louis Philippe Joseph, duc d'Orléans [1747-1793], Paris; acquired 1792 with the Dutch, German, and Flemish paintings of the Orléans collection by Thomas Moore Slade, London, for an English syndicate;[1] (exhibition and sale [by private contract], The Great Rooms, Pall Mall, London, April-June 1793, no. 91); William Smith, M.P. [1756-1835], until at least 1815;[2] Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd marquess of Lansdowne [1780-1863], Bowood House, Wiltshire, by 1824;[3] by inheritance to his son, Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 4th marquess of Lansdowne [1816-1866], Bowood House; by inheritance to his son, Henry Charles Keith Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th marquess of Lansdowne [1845-1927], Bowood House; sold April 1911 through (Arthur J. Sulley & Co., London) to Peter A.B. Widener, Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; inheritance from Estate of Peter A.B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; gift 1942 to NGA.
[1] For the story of the dispersal of the Orléans collection in the 1790s, see William Buchanan, _Memoirs of Painting_, 2 vols., London, 1824: 1:9-216, and Denys Sutton, "Aspects of British Collecting, Part III: XIII The Orléans Collection," _Apollo_ 119 (May 1984): 357-372.
[2] Smith lent the painting to an exhibition at the British Institution in 1815.
[3] Buchanan 1824, 1:195, 196.
Accession Number
1942.9.62
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 87.6 x 105.6 cm (34 1/2 x 41 9/16 in.) | framed: 125.1 × 142.24 cm (49 1/4 × 56 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Widener Collection
Tags
Painting Baroque (1600–1750) Oil Painting Canvas Dutch
Background & Context
Background Story
The Tragedy, painted in 1903, belongs to Picasso's Blue Period - the body of work produced between 1901 and 1904, when the young artist, struggling with poverty and the suicide of his close friend Carlos Casagemas, painted in a limited palette of blues and blue-greens. The painting depicts three figures - a man, a woman, and a child - standing on a barren beach, their emaciated bodies and sorrowful faces embodying the melancholy that pervades every Blue Period work.
The figures do not interact; they stand together in isolated grief, as though each occupies a separate emotional world. The man and woman turn away from each other, their hunched shoulders and downcast eyes communicating despair without specifying its cause. The child, the smallest figure, stands between them and looks directly at the viewer - the only gesture of connection in a composition defined by separation.
Picasso painted The Tragedy during his most desperate years in Barcelona and Paris. The Blue Period was not merely a stylistic phase but a genuine expression of the artist's identification with the poor, the marginal, and the suffering. The elongated forms, the monochrome palette, and the themes of blindness, hunger, and despair all derive from this empathetic engagement with poverty - an engagement that was both authentic and artistic, since the Blue Period paintings were initially too somber to sell.
Cultural Impact
Picasso's Blue Period established him as the most important young painter in Paris and created the paradigm of the artist as a sufferer who transforms personal anguish into universal art. Its influence on Expressionism and on every subsequent painter who used color as a vehicle for emotion was decisive.
Why It Matters
The Tragedy captures the Blue Period's essential quality: the replacement of the visible world with an inner landscape of sorrow. The beach, the sea, and the figures are not observed but imagined - projections of a grief so profound that it colors the entire world blue.
