When Pablo Ruiz y Blasco, the future Picasso, painted The Picador, he was not yet nine and was still living in Málaga. It is his first known oil painting, and its composition is still naive. Though obviously the work of a gifted child, it would be an exaggeration to say that the painting showed the promise of what was to come. This corrida scene is a characteristic though stereotypical image of Spanish culture. However, the picador is shown before a public: the child Picasso seems to have been interested not only by the bullfight, but also by the attitude of its spectators.
