London: One of the most seminal works of Pablo Picasso has smashed an auction record by fetching a whopping $ 63.4 million at a Sotheby’s auction here, almost $ 20 million more than the original estimate.
Femme Assise (1909), one of Picasso’s earliest Cubist paintings, sold for 43.2 million pounds ($ 63.4 million) at a Sotheby’s London auction. Described by Sotheby’s as “the greatest Cubist painting to come to the market in decades,” it has broken the record for the highest price for a Cubist work at any auction. Experts say it depicts Picasso’s lover and frequent model Fernande Olivier. “It is extremely rare,” said Helena Newman, Sotheby’s global co-head of Impressionist and Modern Art department, ahead of the auction.
“The vast, vast, vast majority of the works of the Cubist period of this importance went into museums of the world many years ago because Picasso’s Cubism has for many decades been considered one of the most important, groundbreaking periods — not just for him, but for the whole of what was to come in terms of modern art.”
