From the dition of 250 printed by Louis Fort and edited by Ambroise Vollard, Paris.
This work is in excellent conservation, with full margins and fresh colours.
In 1904 and 1905, Picasso was in between the Blue and Rse periods. Printmaking was a new medium for him, and one he will proceed to work and push to its limits up until his death.
During those years, Picasso explored the theme of the Saltimbanque. The artist lived and worked at the Bateau-Lavoir, a dilapidated place in Montmartre. This period, full of solitude, inspired him to develop a special sensitivity to the life of the saltimbanques, whom he portrayed with a unique sensibility, showing all their humanity. His friendship with Guillaume Apollinaire, whose figure of the travelling acrobat, the "Arlequin trismégiste" as a vagabond and tragic being, also had a visible impact on the blue period.
Nevertheless, rather than a hidden portrait of Apollinaire, as some exegetes have seen in the Vieux saltimbanque, this drypoint represents the real figure of El Tio Pepe Don José, a clown from the El Medrano circus in Montmartre, which Picasso frequented. The figure of El Tio Pepe, isolated in a group or alone, lost in thought, became a recurring theme for the artist, in drawings, paintings and prints.