Picasso masterpiece depicting his mistress to fetch $120 million: Sotheby's

Pablo Picasso's masterpiece "Femme a la montre" is expected to fetch at least USD 120 million, said auction house Sotheby's on Wednesday (September 13). The painting depicts the late Spanish painter's mistress wearing a watch. It will be sold as part of a two-day auction of late New Yorker Emily Fisher Landau's prestigious collection. The auction is to take place in the month of November this year.

There are other works up for sale as well. These include pieces by Jasper Johns, Willem de Koonig, Mark Rothko and Andy Warhol.

Fisher Landau, who was a longtime board member of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, was a renowned art patron and collector. Landau passed away in March at the age of 102.

Sotheby's released a statement and said that about 120 pieces from her collection would be auctioned. The auction house estimated that it would bring "well over USD 400 million" in total. "Femme a la montre" is expected to make a significant portion of this.

Julian Dawes, head of the Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern Art division, called the Picasso painting "a masterpiece by every measure."

"It is full of joyful, passionate abandon yet at the same time it is utterly considered and resolved," said Dawes, noting its creation in 1932 was part of Picasso's "annus mirabilis," or miracle year.

The year 1932 was so important in Picasso's work that an entire exhibition was devoted to it in 2018 at London's Tate Modern Museum.

Sotheby's said that Marie-Therese Walter (1909-1977), Picasso's "golden muse" depicted in the painting, is featured in "many of his most accomplished portraits."

Picasso was still married to Russian-Ukrainian ballet dancer Olga Khokhlova when he met Walter in Paris in the year 1927. At the time, Walter was 17.

The duo's daughter passed away last year.

Walter was also featured in "Femme assise pres d'une fenetre (Marie-Therese)". The artwork was sold in 2021 for USD 103.4 million by Christie's auction house.

Picasso isone of the most influential artists of the modern world. He is often hailed as a dynamic and creative genius. He passed away at the age of 91 in the year 1973.

In the wake of the #Metoo movement, the reputation of this workaholic with a vast output of paintings, sketches and sculpture has been tarnished by accusations he exerted a violent hold over the women who shared his life and inspired his art.

(With inputs from agencies)

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