Posted on 10/17/2006 9:34:51 AM PDT by Abathar
Pablo Picasso's "dream" painting has turned into a $139 million nightmare for Steve Wynn.
In an accident witnessed by a group that included Barbara Walters and screenwriters Nora Ephron and Nicholas Pileggi, Wynn accidentally poked a hole in Picasso's 74-year-old painting, "Le Reve," French for "The Dream."
A day earlier, Wynn had finalized a record $139 million deal for the painting of Picasso's mistress, Wynn told The New Yorker magazine
The accident occurred as a gesturing Wynn, who suffers from retinitis pigmentosa, an eye disease that affects peripheral vision, struck the painting with his right elbow, leaving a hole the size of a silver dollar in the left forearm of Marie-Theresa Walter, Picasso's 21-year-old mistress.
"Oh shit, look what I've done," Wynn said, according to Ephron, who gave her account in a blog published on Monday.
Wynn paid $48.4 million for the Picasso in 1997 and had agreed to sell it to art collector Steven Cohen. The $139 million would have been $4 million higher than the previous high for a work of art, according to The New Yorker.
Cosmetics magnate Ronald Lauder paid $135 million in July for Gustav Klimt's 1907 portrait "Adele Bloch-Bauer I."
Wynn plans to restore "Le Reve" and keep it.
Yeah, the horror.
As Homer Simpson would say...
DOOOOOHHHHH!
Yeah, I remember ruining a painting the same way that Wynn did... only mine was "Dogs Playing Poker".
you break it you buy it
LOL!
Sounds like more of a nightmare than a dream
Libs just blazing the trail so their moslem overlords won't have to destroy all decadent western art when they've taken over.
Assuming the canvas can be properly repaired, and it sounds like it can be, I doubt this will impact the value at all. But, I bet the guy had to go throw up after he realized what he'd done, lol.
I'm having more than a little trouble getting worked up over damage to that.
Klutz.
It's Bush's fault...
That's a Picasso all right.
Trendy Man: Mr. Melon, your wife was just showing us her Klimt.
Thornton Melon: You too, huh? She's shown it to everybody.
Trendy Man: Well, she's very proud of it.
Thornton Melon: I'm proud of mine too. I don't go waving it around at parties, though.
Trendy Man: It's an exceptional painting.
Thornton Melon: Oh, the painting.
Let this be a lesson to all of us that are ready to drop $139 million on a painting.
When he owned the Bellagio in Las Vegas, wifey and I took the tour of his multi-million dollar art gallery....there were all sorts of security devices, and if you'd lean over the velvet rope, like I did to get a closer glimpse of a small picture, a guard would quickly whisper you away.
I saw him last time we stayed at Wynn Las Vegas. He has a very large bodyguard and as people began to notice him you could hear the buzz, "Steve Wynn, Steve Wynn", being whispered along the big corridor. He wasn't carrying a Picasso at the time.
Yep, considering he had it sold for more than any other painting to date, his butt is probably sore from kicking himself.
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