The artist’s portrait of Marie-Therese Walter, known as his ‘golden muse’, sold for £49.8 million at Sotheby’s London on Wednesday evening
A Picasso artwork has sold for nearly £50 million – the highest auction price for any painting ever sold in Europe in pounds.
The artist’s portrait of Marie-Therese Walter, known as his ‘golden muse’, sold for £49.8 million at Sotheby’s London on Wednesday evening.
The 1937 painting has never been sold on the market before, having previously been part of a private collection.
Femme au beret et a la robe quadrillee was painted in the same year as the artist’s famous Guernica.
After global interest four people battled it out for the 22-inch high artwork and it finally sold for £49.8m, making it the most expensive painting ever auctioned in the UK.
It was bought by Gurr Johns, an art acquisition firm, who also forked out £22.8m on two other pieces of work by the Spanish artist.
This included £16.5m on Le Matador, a self-portrait of the Spanish artist as a bullfighter, painted in the final years of his life.
The 1937 painting has never been sold on the market before, having previously been part of a private collection
Thomas Bompard, head of Sotheby’s London impressionist and modern art evening sales, called the oil on canvas work ‘one of the greatest portraits by Picasso to appear on the market in recent years.’
He said: ‘Of all of the artist’s styles and decades, this is the one that most epitomises the legacy of Picasso as a portraitist of women – with this particular painting encompassing all of the key elements for which he is recognised and celebrated.’
Pablo Picasso and Marie-Therese Walter met in 1927 and kept their relationship secret for years
The painting sold for the second highest price in pounds in Europe is Rubens’ The Massacre of the Innocents, which sold for £49.5 million in 2002.
Sales at the high-profile auction totalled £136m, with 36 lots selling for an average of £3.8m.
A bronze chandelier by Alberto Giacometti was another star lot, selling to a private collector for £7.6m.
Gurr Johns, an art acquisition firm, also bought Le Matador, (left) a self-portrait of the Spanish artist as a bullfighter for £16.5m, as well as Picasso’s Tete De Femme (right)