Woman with the Watch, painted in 1932 by Pablo Picasso, was exhibited Monday in Dubai, opening a tour that will take this painting to Hong Kong, then to New York, where it will be auctioned in November. The auction house Sotheby's had indicated in mid-September that the painting, representing one of the companions and muses of the Spanish artist, the French painter Marie-Thérèse Walter, could sell for $ 120 million at auction on November 8 and 9.
" READ ALSO "Woman to the watch" of Picasso could sell $ 120 million in New York
The work is presented in the exhibition hall of Sotheby's, owned by French, Moroccan and Israeli tycoon Patrick Drahi, at the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), the emirate's financial district. According to Julian Dawes, head of the Impressionist and Modern Arts Division at Sotheby's, Picasso attracted potential buyers from all over the world. "In the past, we've seen offers from literally every continent, every major city," he told AFP at the inauguration ceremony in Dubai. "Between 2021 and 2022, we have seen an increase of more than 100 percent in the number of bidders and buyers from the Middle East," he said.
Woman with the Watch belonged to the New York collector Emily Fisher Landau, who died at the end of March at the age of 102, who also owned several works by Jasper Johns, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko and Andy Warhol, offered at auction on November 8 and 9.
Fifty years after his death, the author of Guernica (1937) and Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) continues to fascinate: museums around the world, particularly in France and Spain, are devoting fifty exhibitions to him in 2023.
