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"Pulchinella" was said to Picasso's favourite ballet. He worked on the sotume and stage designs for Diaghilev in 1920.
In The Unknown Masterpiece, Picasso has taken elements of his costume design for one of the ballet's principal characters, "La marchande des Poissons," and incorporated them into the left hand figure, whose feet and squared head covering are almost identical in appearance.
In addition, the fish that appears in the costume design can be related to the fish concealed along the right hand edge of The Unknown Masterpiece and to the other fish shapes hidden in its composition.
