Depicting Picasso's muse, Marie-Thérèse Walter, in the form of a multi-limbed sea creature, the Spanish painter's
Reclining Naked Woman
was offered for sale at an evening auction organized by Sotheby's on Tuesday May 17, in New York.
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Sold by the billionaire and owner of the Nets (New York basketball team which plays in the NBA), Steve Cohen, the work went for 67.5 million dollars.
Prior to the sale, Sotheby's predicted Picasso's surrealist painting would fetch more than $60 million.
"Tuesday's price is lower than other portraits of Maria Theresa, one of which fetched $103.4 million at Christie's last year
," Reuters said.
Marie-Thérèse was the companion and muse of the artist who spent most of her life in France.
She was 17 when she met Picasso, then in his forties, in Paris.
They begin a secret relationship while he is still married to his first wife, Russian-Ukrainian ballet dancer Olga Khokhlova.
She is also the mother of Maya Widmaier-Picasso, one of the painter's two daughters.
A hyper-dynamic American market
This eight-figure sale comes a week after the historic one of the portrait of Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol in 1964. Sold for 195 million dollars at Christie's, the silkscreen set a record for a work by an American artist sold at auction.
Read alsoRecord for a portrait of Marilyn Monroe by Warhol sold at auction for 195 million dollars
The evening, which raised a total of $408.5 million, was the third biggest sale in Sotheby's history.
The auction house also boasted this week of having broken the record for "
the most expensive collection ever sold at auction"
with the very famous Macklowe collection, part in two parts, last November and Monday, May 16 at evening, for 922 million dollars.
Read alsoArt market: new record in New York with the sale of the Macklowe collection
SEE ALSO -
Auction: eleven works by Picasso sold for more than 93 million euros
