Posted on 05/05/2010 11:45:02 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
His 1932 portrait 'Nude, Green Leaves and Bust' fetches $106.5 million.
Some mistresses are more valuable than others. On Tuesday night, Christie's New York sold Pablo Picasso's bold 1932 portrait of his lover Marie-Thérèse Walter, "Nude, Green Leaves and Bust," for $106.5 million, making it the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction.
"I think the Picasso illustrates what has been true in good and bad economic times the very best works of art continue to sell at a premium," said Marc Porter, chairman of Christie's Americas. He said the nine bidders active after the opening bid of $58 million "came from all over: Asia, the U.S., and Europe, including the former Soviet republic."
At press time, the buyer, who had placed the winning bid of $95 million (which, including buyer's fees, amounts to $106.5 million) by telephone, was not identified.
The painting came from the estate of Frances Brody, the Los Angeles arts patron who died last year at age 93. Her husband Sidney, a real estate developer, died in 1983. The estate consigned this Picasso to Christie's along with some 80 other artworks. The most valuable pieces, including sculptures by Alberto Giacometti, went up for auction Tuesday night; the remainder are slated for Wednesday morning.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
The value of such a painting is sustained by mutual desire and paid in a generally-agreed-on abstraction called “money”.
You Rang????
AHHHHHHGGGGG
No, I find Dali more amusing than great, but my reaction to that portrait is that he likes her. There’s a lot of brutality in many of Picasso’s portraits. He had a habit of picking up mistresses and dropped them. And it’s not surprising that he sometimes portrays himself as a minotaur or bull.
Lol! Oh I knew that. ;)
Actually, my tastes are a little more refined than that. I'm more of a "Poker Dogs" man...
This one brought 4 million last November at Christies.
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