Sotheby’s Offers Picasso Portrait of Marie Therese

  Sotheby’s will offer Spanish artist Pablo Picasso’s 1937 painting ‘Femme au Béret et à la Robe Quadrillée’ (Woman with a Beret and Plaid Dress) which is the powerful portrait of Marie-Therese Walter, Picasso’s model, in its Impressionist and Modern Art evening auction in London on February 28.

The painting, showing the woman Picasso called his “golden muse,” is likely to be the evening’s top lot, with an estimated £36.5m ($50m) price tag, The Art Newspaper reported.

It has never been on the market. It passed from the artist’s estate after he died in 1973 into the private collection that is now selling the work under a guarantee.

Sotheby’s will show the work first in Hong Kong (January 30-February 2) then Taipei (February 6-7), a clear sign of the significance of Asia’s buyers for the Picasso market and for impressionist and modern works in general.

“Asian collectors are looking for masterpieces and the power of real art. This painting is all about that,” said Thomas Bompard, head of Sotheby’s London Impressionist and Modern Art evening sales.

Until last year, London’s Impressionist and Modern auctions were held at the end of January or in early February, but have been moved a month later, in part to avoid clashing with the Chinese New Year.

Last year’s equivalent sale made £195m, a record for any London auction, led by Austrian painter Gustav Klimt’s 1907 painting ‘Bauerngarten’ (Flower Garden) which sold for £42.5m (£48m with fees).