New York: One of Pablo Picasso’s masterpieces, ‘Woman with a Watch,’ has sold for $139.3 million at a Sotheby’s auction in New York, the second-highest price ever achieved for the artist.
The 1932 painting depicts one of the Spanish artist’s companions and muses, the French painter Marie-Therese Walter. According to Sotheby’s, the painting was valued at over $120 million before it was put up for auction.
The painting is part of Sotheby’s special sale this week of the collection of the wealthy New York patron of the arts Emily Fisher Landau, who died this year at the age of 102.
Julian Dawes, Sotheby’s head of impressionist and modern art, called the painting “a masterpiece by every measure.” Walter was considered Picasso’s “golden muse”, and features in another of his works. This one will be auctioned at Christie’s and is expected to sell for $25-35 million.
Picasso and Walter met each other in Paris in 1927, when the Spaniard was still married to Russian-Ukrainian ballet dancer Olga Khokhlova, and Walter was 17 years old at the time.
Walter also featured in “Femme assise pres d’une fenetre (Marie-Therese)”, which was sold in 2021 for $103.4 million by Christie’s auction house.
Pablo Picasso passed away in 1973 at the age of 91, after his death he is still counted among the most influential artists of modern times and hailed as a creative genius.
But in the wake of the #MeToo movement, Picasso’s life was also looked at through a different lens which led to accusations that he had a violent hold on the lives of women who were inspirations for his art.
TRENDING | Hollywood actors agree on tentative deal to end strike
