Picasso’s Cubist Portrait Could Fetch $40 Million At Sotheby’s Auction
Femme Assise
Christie’s Global Art Sales Achieve $3.2 Billion in the First Half of 2011
Picasso Masterpieces Earn $68.5 Million at Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Auctions in London
A Christie’s Auction House staff with Pablo Picasso’s Jeune Fille Endormie and Femme Assise, Robe Bleue
Pablo Picasso’s portraits of three different lovers raised £42.2 million ($68.5 million) at Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Sale in London. Top lot on the night was a Femme assise, robe bleue, depiction of Dora Maar, who became Picasso’s lover and muse at the expense of Marie-Therese Walter. The 1939 painting, which had been unseen in public since 1967, sold for £18 million ($29.1 million), several times the pre-sale estimate of £4-8 million.
It had been acquired by the seller’s family from Beyeler in about 1968. The new buyer was the Swiss-based Greek collector Dimitri Mavrommatis, bidding by telephone to Thomas Seydoux, Christie’s international head of Impressionist and modern art, the auction house said after the sale.