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Lot 80AR

Dame Paula Rego R.A.
(1935-2022)
Death Goes Shopping

22 September – 1 October 2025, 12:00 BST
Online, London, New Bond Street

£3,000 - £5,000

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Dame Paula Rego R.A. (1935-2022)

Death Goes Shopping (see Rosenthal 277)
Etching with aquatint in colours, 2010, on Somerset wove paper, a unique stage proof produced in preparation for the numbered edition of 35, signed in pencil, printed by Paupers Press, published by Enitharmon Editions, London, the full sheet, framed

Sheet 46 x 55.5cm (18 1/8 x 21 7/8in)

Footnotes

Dame Paula Rego was one of five artists invited by Enitharmon Editions to contribute to the portfolio 'I Have Found a Song', commissioned by the Arts Council England in 2010 to mark the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act.

In this scene the artist imagined a marriage market, with the girls chained up and subjected to physical inspection.

"I had been to see an exhibition in Antwerp, and there they have the most beautiful lace dresses you can imagine. I bought a lot of them. It struck me that they were like little bridal gowns, and when I got back to my studio in London I made some dolls and put the dresses on them. I made up a story that they were kept in chains and that they were going to be sold: marketed and loaded onto a cart, like chickens, by a nasty woman representing Death".
- Dame Paula Rego

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