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  The Christian Zervos 33-volume catalogue raisonné of Picasso paintings, drawings and sculptures has just been newly reprinted, a collaborative marketing effort between the original publisher, Cahiers d’Art, and Sotheby’s.  The set will soon be available for $20,000 (gulp!).  In a promotional video distributed by Sotheby’s, Staffan Ahrenberg of Cahiers d’Art states, “It contains over 16,000 images, and it has become the most important reference work on Picasso.” Well, yes and no.  For those antiquarians among us who are still stuck on the original catalogue raisonné, it lends a bit of cache if your Picasso is illustrated in Zervos, though it does not really add value and is by no means necessary to establish authenticity.  But Picasso made many more […]

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