A 1932 portrait Femme assise près d’une fenêtre (Marie-Thérèse) by Pablo Picasso will be offered by Christie’s New York at its 20th Century Art Evening Sale in New York on 11 May. The painting is estimated to fetch a price of $55m.
Picasso met and began an affair with 17-year-old Marie-Thérèse Walter, who became the inspiration for some of his most sought after sculptures, drawings and canvases. “One of the most striking features of Femme assise près d’une fenêtre (Marie-Thérèse) is its monumental scale. At five feet tall, she lives on the canvas,” Fusco says, “there’s more psychology to her here than in other paintings. There’s a deep sensuality without being in any way degrading.”
Femme assise près d’une fenêtre which translates to “Woman Sitting Near a Window” last came to auction in February 2013, when it sold for £28.6m ($44.8m, including fees) to the third party guarantor at Sotheby’s London. The buyer was the only person that appeared to be bidding on the work, over the phone with Patti Wong, the chairman of Sotheby’s Asia.
The portrait will now anchor the auction house’s new 20th Century Art Evening Sale, which replaces the Impressionist and Modern Art category and includes works from roughly the 1870s to the 1980s. Fusco says the new format was introduced out of an “organic need to redefine the way auctions were held and to respond to the way collectors are collecting.”