In 1905, Pablo Picasso entered his Rose Period by painting jugglers and acrobats from the circus. The period is especially associated with travelling performers, clowns, harlequins, and acrobats known in French as saltimbanques.
Picasso lived in Paris near the Cirque Médrano, a popular circus at the foot of Montmartre. Its performers became a major source of inspiration, and he frequently depicted their rehearsals, family life, costumes, and precarious existence. Works such as Young Acrobat on a Ball and Family of Saltimbanques date from this period.
The Rose Period followed Picasso’s Blue Period, which had focused on melancholy figures and cool blue tones. Between roughly 1904 and 1906, his palette became warmer, with pinks, oranges, and ochres, while the circus offered subjects that could be both lively and emotionally complex. The paintings are not simply cheerful entertainment scenes: many performers appear isolated or thoughtful.
A common mix-up is to call the period exclusively “pink.” Picasso also painted non-circus subjects during these years, and the period is sometimes called his Circus or Harlequin period. The key subject behind the question, however, is the circus.