Etching on vélin du Lana Papiers Spéciaux pur fil paper. Paper Size: 10.0625 x 8.25 inches. Excellent condition. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Notes: From the album, Du cubisme, 1947. Published by Compagnie Française des Arts Graphiques, Paris; printed by Thirot, Le Maître-Imprimeur, Paris, July 3, 1947. Excerpted from the album (translated from French), Du cubisme...was completed to print on July 3, 1947 by R. Girard & Cie for the typography and by the Compagnie Française des Arts Graphiques for the plates in copperplate engraving, le maître, Thirot being presser. Du cubisme was completed to print on July 1, 1947. The draw includes: No. I. example on papier d'Auvergne with some states and two suites of the plates. No. II to XX. examples on papier d'Auvergne with two suites of the boards. No. XXI to XXXV. examples on papier d'Auvergne with a suite of plates. No. XXXVI to CDXXXV. examples on papier pur fil Lana. In addition, XX examples were printed on papier Lana, numbered in Roman numerals for the Dépôt Légal and collaborators. FRANCIS PICABIA (1879-1953) was a French avant-garde painter, writer, filmmaker, magazine publisher, poet, and typographist closely associated with Dada. At various points in his life, Picabia supported himself through his dealings in the art market, focusing on buying and selling works by his fellow avant-gardists. For all the ire that Picabia directed toward Cubist art in his Dada manifestos, he purchased important examples of Cubism throughout his career as a dealer. He bought Picasso’s newspaper collage Bottle and Wine Glass on a Table (1912; The Metropolitan Museum of Art) from the Galerie Kahnweiler before 1914. Picabia then sold it to Alfred Stieglitz for $150 while in New York in 1915 traveling in service of the French Army. Picabia then deserted the military and spent the war years living in New York and, later, Barcelona, spreading the gospel of modernism internationally through his numerous publications and exhibits. Tzara recalls that Picabia was one of the buyers at the famous Kahnweiler sequestration sales of 1921 to 1923, where the German-born dealer’s collection of works by Picasso, Georges Braque, Juan Gris, and Fernand Léger were sold off after being seized by the French government during World War I.