NEW YORK.- Picasso and Lump: A Daschund's Odyssey by David Douglas Duncan. One spring morning in 1957 veteran photojournalist David Douglas Duncan paid a visit to his friend and frequent photographic subject Pablo Picasso, at the artist's villa near Cannes. Riding alongside Duncan in his Mercedes Gullwing 300 SL was the photographer's pet dachshund, Lump. Photographer and dog were uneasy companions. Duncan's nomadic lifestyle and his other dog--a giant Afghan hound--had never suited the jealous and temperamental Lump. So when they arrived at Picasso's Villa La Californie that spring day, Lump decided that he had found his paradise on earth, and that he would take up permanent residence with Picasso. As fate would have it, Picasso immediately agreed to take him in.

This is the background for an utterly charming book that offers the little-known portrait of Picasso as affectionate master to the delighted dachshund Lump. The new friend immediately became a part of the family scene at Villa La Californie, and--much to Jaqueline Picasso's surprise-a fixture in the painter's studio. Lump was immortalized in a Picasso portrait painted on a plate, but this was just the beginning. In a suite of 54 paintings reinterpreting Velsquez's masterpiece Las Meninas, Picasso replaced a regal-looking hound in the foreground with a jaunty rendering of Lump. Fifteen of the paintings are reproduced here, bringing full circle the odyssey of a fortunate dachshund who found his way from reluctant road warrior to immortal icon of modern art.