The painting “Woman Sitting Near a Window (Marie-Therese)” is the fifth Pablo Picasso work to sell for more than $100 million
NEW YORK: Pablo Picasso’s “Woman Sitting Near a Window (Marie-Therese)” sold on Thursday (May 14) for US$103.4 million at Christie’s in New York, the auction house said.
The painting, completed in 1932, was sold after 19 minutes of bidding for $90 million, which rose to US$103.4 million when fees and commissions were added, Christie’s said.
Christie’s had estimated the painting would sell for US$55 million.
The sale confirms the vitality of the art market despite the COVID-19 pandemic – but also the special status of Picasso, who was born in 1881 and died in 1973.
The generally good performance of Thursday’s auctions, totaling US$481 million, “signals a real return to normal and also a message that the art market is really back on track”, said Bonnie Brennan, president of Christie’s America.
The painting, depicting Picasso’s young mistress and muse, Marie-Therese Walter, was acquired only eight years ago at a London sale for £28.6 million (about US$44.8 million), less than half the price offered Thursday.
Five works by the Spanish painter have now crossed the symbolic threshold of US$100 million.
Even before this sale, he was already alone at the top of this very exclusive club with four paintings, including Women of Algiers, which holds the record for a Picasso, at US$179.4 million in 2015.
This is the first time in two years that a work has broken the US$100 million mark since an 1890 Claude Monet Meules painting reached US$110.7 million at Sotheby’s, also in New York.
On Tuesday, the painting In This Case by the American painter Jean-Michel Basquiat sold for US$93.1 million at Christie’s in the first of the major spring sales, one of the two most important events in the auction world.
