A painting by Pablo Picasso that has not been displayed in public in nearly 40 years will go on the block in New York this spring, and auctioneer Bonhams expects it could fetch a price of $10 million–$15 million. The painting titled Femme au béret mauve will fist be shown in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Paris, and Hong Kong before coming to its final location at the house’s New York headquarters. It is expected to fetch a price of $10 million–$15 million.
It’s an abstract portrait of Marie-Thérèse Walter, Picasso’s mistress and muse who served as a model for many of his paintings and sculptures throughout their decade-long relationship. The painting was painted at the time of starting of Spanish Civil War in Le Tremblay-sur-Mauldre, France. Le Tremblay-sur-Mauldre was located 50km in the west from Paris where the artist had installed Marie and Maya and where he would visit them at weekends.
“This bright, joyous portrait of Marie-Thérèse Walter exudes stability and calm at a time when Picasso’s personal life was in turmoil and all of Europe was living under the shadow of impending war,” Molly Ott Amber, Bonhams senior vice president and head of impressionist, modern, European and American Art, said in a statement. “Family life with Marie-Thérèse and their daughter Maya represented a refuge of serenity and sensuality so wonderfully captured in this work.”
The work is coming to auction for the first time from an American collection, where it has resided since 1984, when the owners purchased in from New York’s Hirschl & Adler gallery. Prior to that, it was briefly held by a Cologne collector who had purchased it from a Geneva dealer in the 1980s. The dealer had acquired it from the artist’s granddaughter Marina Picasso.