Picasso's use of opium, a substance that was regularly used by the tenants of the Bateau-Lavoir during this period. In the first volume of John Richardson's 1991 biography A Life of Picasso, he stated that the artist smoked opium several times a week between 1904 and 1908. Scientific analysis Analysis of the painting has revealed that Picasso painted the composition twice before completing the third and final layer. In 1980, E. A. Carmean and Ann Hoenigswald made the discovery whilst carrying out an x-ray examination of the painting. The examination revealed that there were two earlier paintings beneath the surface, the first of which depicted a circus family and the second depicted a pair of acrobats. This showed that Picasso worked on the canvas for over a year and also helped to clarify the chronology of his artistic transition from the end of his Blue Period in 1904 to his early Rose Period in 1905. Art historians remain unclear about whether Picasso painted over the earlier paintings because he was dissatisfied with them or because he was simply too poor to afford a new canvas. X-radiography has shown the previous versions of the painting, in which Picasso had made several changes to the figures, such as the woman's hat and shoulders, the colour of the child's ballet slippers and the red jester's leg. The scientific study also revealed how Picasso not only changed the figures over the course of several versions of the painting, but also changed the tonality. The original image was predominantly blue but Picasso changed this to rose and allowed the blue shades to show through the paint as he made changes to the painting. The resulting final composition conveys a dusky rose-blue palette that presents an overarching atmosphere of sadness. Interpretation Critics have suggested that Family of Saltimbanques is a covert group portrait of Picasso and his social circle, symbolized as poor, independent and isolated. The painting was removed from the Spanish salon at the IX Biennale of Venice in 1910, because it was considered inappropriate by the organization. The figures in the painting have been described as representations of specific identities. While the harlequin resembles Picasso, the small acrobat resembles Picasso's friend, the poet Max Jacob. The deep-browed acrobat is considered to be a representation of André Salmon and the large jester is said to be a representation of Guillaume Apollinaire. It was alongside these