Family of Saltimbanques (French: ) is a 1905 oil on canvas painting by Pablo Picasso. The work depicts six saltimbanques, a kind of itinerant circus performer, in a desolate landscape. It is considered the masterpiece of Picasso's Rose Period, sometimes called his circus period. The painting is housed in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Background This painting was created during Picasso's early years as an artist after moving to Paris from Barcelona in 1904. As a young man with little money, Picasso lived in a studio in a dilapidated building known as the Bateau-Lavoir. He was fortunate to be surrounded by the many young artists who lived in the building and local area, but for Picasso, this was a period of loneliness and poverty. His sympathy for lonely, poor and isolated people is most evident in the melancholy paintings of his Blue Period, which continued until 1904. By 1905, Picasso shifted his outlook and began to paint in a new palette of warmer shades, depicting subjects with a more positive undertone. In this Rose Period, Picasso developed an interest in the life of the saltimbanque, or travelling circus performer, often depicting groups or families of acrobats. Description Family of Saltimbanques was painted during a period from late 1904 to early 1906 when Picasso was exploring themes about the saltimbanque. During this period, Picasso frequently attended the Cirque Médrano in Montmartre and was inspired by a group of performers there. In the circus performers, Picasso found a connection, as like himself, many of them were from Spain and experienced a transitory lifestyle that he had also experienced as a young man. Family of Saltimbanques is a huge painting measuring 7 ft x 7.5 ft. It was an ambitious work for a young, impoverished artist. The painting consists of a group of saltimbanques, who stand together but appear to be disconnected as they do not look at one another. Picasso depicted himself in this composition as the harlequin dressed in a diamond-patterned costume. The figures in the group appear isolated as if lost in their own thoughts. They glance towards a woman who is sitting alone. The harlequin is shown to be reaching towards a child who is standing behind him. John Richardson and other art historians have considered that the dreamy atmosphere of the painting and the expressionless appearances of the figures were influenced by