A Pablo Picasso nude of his teenage mistress will go on the block tonight in London, with auctioneers expecting it to fetch more than Euro 6 million (US$9 million).
Nu au collier, or Nude With a Necklace, focuses on Marie-Therese Walter's blue eyes, and her flesh is reflected in lilac tones.
PHOTO: REUTERS
"It's a trophy painting private collectors will almost inevitably outbid institutional collectors for," said Jussi Pylkkanen, international director of impressionist and modern art at Christie's International Plc. "It's Picasso at his most mature when he was painting handsome portraits of a beautiful young woman."
Eight private collectors have already shown an interest, Pylkkanen said, as demand for fine art is undented by the US recession that began March 2001. Record prices were set at last month's annual auctions in New York, where a sculpture by Constantin Brancusi went for US$18.1 million.
A painting of water lilies by French Impressionist Claude Monet sold yesterday for Euro 13.5 million (US$20.3 million) at Sotheby's, the highest price paid for a painting in London this year.
"People with great taste have realized their money isn't doing much for them in other areas, so why not spend it on art instead of having it tread water elsewhere?" Pylkkanen said.
The minimum asking price for the painting, which hasn't been shown in public since the 1950s, will be Euro 6 million, Christie's said. It belongs to a European collector, whose parents bought the painting from Picasso's art-dealer, Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler, in the 1930s.
Picasso, then 46, introduced himself to Walter, 17, outside Paris's Galeries Lafayette department store in 1927 and said they would "do great things together."
He was married at the time to former Russian ballet dancer Olga Khoklova. Four of the 10 most expensive Picasso paintings were portraits of Walter, Pylkkanen said. The Dream fetched US$48.4 million in 1997. The record for a Picasso was set by ``Femme aux bras croises,'' which sold for US$55 million in 2000.
Picasso, who left Walter for Argentine photographer Dora Maar, died in 1973 at the age of 92. Walter committed suicide in 1977.
A portrait of another of his mistresses will also be on sale. Femme au Turban, a portrait of socialite Sara Murphy, is expected to raise between Euro 500,000 and Euro 700,000. Murphy and her husband Gerald were the inspiration for Dick and Nicole Diver, the protagonists in F. Scott Fitzgerald's tragic romance Tender is the Night.
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