“Woman with a red-orange beret”, estimated between 20 and 30 million dollars, sold for 40.47 million.
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The transactions took place at the famous Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, known for its art collection. Eleven works by Pablo Picasso belonging to the American hotel-casino group MGM Resorts, including a portrait of his French muse Marie-Thérèse Walter, brought in 108.87 million dollars (93.5 million euros) during a auction organized on Saturday 23 October by Sotheby’s.
The jewel of this sale, two days before the 140th birthday of the Spanish painter, was the famous painting Woman in red-orange beret, one of the last portraits made by Marie-Thérèse Walter’s artist. Then 45 years old, the famous painter had set his sights in 1926 on the young woman of 17 years to make her his muse. Like her other lovers, she had subsequently denounced the violent behavior of the genius of painting, reported one of her biographers to the Figaro in 2018.
Woman in red-orange beret, estimated at between $ 20 and $ 30 million, sold for $ 40.47 million. Picasso had painted the mother of his daughter Maya in January 1938 when he already had an affair with the photographer Dora Maar, during “one of Picasso’s most inspired and productive periods”, according to Sotheby’s.
Two other emblematic portraits executed by the painter during the last years of his life have been sold, Man and child for $ 24.39 million and Bust of a man for 9.45 million – below the initial estimate of 10 million. Presented by the painter in his 1970 exhibition at the Palais des Papes in Avignon, these portraits were made between January 5, 1969 and February 2, 1970.
Other works donated at this auction included ceramics, drawings and still lifes.