Picasso portrait of muse Dora Maar in vivid hat, long hidden from view, sells for 32 million euros

AP News ^ | October 24, 2025 | OLEG CETINIC

[Red Badger]

A vividly hued Picasso portrait of longtime muse and partner Dora Maar that had remained out of view for more than eight decades sold Friday at auction for 32 million euros (about $37 million), including fees.

Painted in July 1943, “Bust of a Woman with a Flowered Hat (Dora Maar)” depicts Maar in a brightly colored floral hat. Maar, an artist and photographer herself, had been Picasso’s partner and muse for about seven years, and the relationship was coming to a painful close. The work was purchased in 1944 and had not been on the market since, remaining in the family collection.

The painting was auctioned at the Drouot auction house in Paris, which heralded the reappearance of the work, part of Picasso’s “Woman in a Hat” series, “a moment of rare significance, revealing for the first time the full radiance of a work long kept secret.”

Auctioneer Christophe Lucien called the final sale, to a buyer in the room, “an enormous success,” and well higher than original estimates. He said the price — 32,012,397 euros after adding buyer fees to the 27-million hammer price — was not only well above estimates but also the highest price paid at auction this year for an artwork in France.

He called the painting “a little piece of the story of love” — albeit a bittersweet one — between Picasso and Maar.

[Red Badger]

[Dr. Sivana]

Looks like the Queen of Diamonds on LSD.

[Red Badger]

Would someone please tell me why this painter, Picasso, paintings that look like the work of a six year old child, are worth millions of dollars and Euros?

Between him, Marc Chagall and Jackson Pollack, I thing the art world has been scammed for over a hundred years............

[GingisK]

I’ve seen those sort of things tacked to the walls in elementary schools.

[Red Badger]

I’ve seen those sort of things tacked to the doors on refrigerators..............

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

You’ve got that right. And, few know who Diego Velazquez was...

[Lizavetta]

I will never understand how Picasso is considered or valued as an artist.

It's all ugly and unartistic (if that's a word) to me. Primitive, basic, blunt, ugly ... and that's before the ugly cubism crap.

You can have it. Give me Monet, Degas, Rembrandt, and so many others who actually have talent.

[nwrep]

Who is that retard touching the portrait and why do they let her?

[Red Badger]

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!.................

[Dr. Sivana]

Give me Monet, Degas, Rembrandt, and so many others who actually have talent.

Oh, Picasso had talent alright. There was no money in his era for the good stuff. He was a cold and starving artist who had to burn his good paintings for heat. The Moderns (including Communists) Liked the ugly stuff and the cubism. His career took off and he never looked back.

[Red Badger]

Agnes something or other, ‘Art Expert”..............

[ThinkingBuddha]

You can add the serial plagiarizer Roy Lichtenstein to that list.

[Dr. Sivana]

[TangoLimaSierra]

Between him, Marc Chagall and Jackson Pollack, I thing the art world has been scammed for over a hundred years.

I agree with all that.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Looks like something our 5th grade class did in 1956.

[mairdie]

While his later periods turn me off, his early periods overwhelm me. He's a master of anatomy and clearly classically trained. He's creating his own style to make himself financially stand out. And it worked. Think the elongated figures in the Baroque period after the Renaissance.

Surrealism - Villa Lobos - Joan Baez
https://youtu.be/dvW4GpGjGS8

As for the woman ALMOST touching the painting, she's giving a lecture at a Picasso exhibition and getting close but no cigar.

The Old Guitarist, late 1903–early 1904, Chicago's Art Institute

[BigEdLB]

Pablo did have a thing for odd women

[Lurker]

Pablo Picasso was never called an ***hole.

L

[PAR35]

Would someone please tell me why this painter, Picasso, paintings that look like the work of a six year old child, are worth millions of dollars and Euros?

Because he produced a Communist propaganda work in 1937, earning him the love of Billionaire Bolsheviks world wide.

[SkyDancer]

This is art.