Picasso portrait of muse Dora Maar auctioned for $37 million : NPR

Art expert Agnès Sevestre-Barbe shows a rediscovered Picasso painting “Bust of a Woman with a Flowered Hat” on Wednesday in Paris. The portrait of Dora Maar, a muse and longtime partner, was sold at auction on Friday for 32 million euros (about $37 million).

Emma Da Silva/AP

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Emma Da Silva/AP

PARIS — A brightly colored Picasso portrait of Dora Maar, a muse and longtime partner that remained hidden from the public for more than eight decades, sold at auction Friday for 32 million euros (about $37 million), including fees — exceeding expectations but far from being the artist’s most expensive work ever sold at auction.

Painted in July 1943, “Bust of a Woman with a Flowered Hat (Dora Maar)” depicts Maar in a brightly colored flowered hat. Maar, herself an artist and photographer, had been Picasso’s partner and muse for about seven years, and the relationship was coming to a painful end. The work was purchased in 1944 and has not been sold since, remaining in the family collection.

The painting, part of Picasso’s “Woman with a Hat” series, was sold at auction at the Drouot auction house in Paris. Auctioneer Christophe Lucien described the final sale, in front of a buyer present in the room, as a “huge success”, as well as a very moving moment. He said the price – 32,012,397 euros after adding the purchase costs to the 27 million hammer price – was not only well above estimates, but also the highest paid at auction this year for a work of art in France.

Lucien called the painting “a little piece of the love story” – albeit bittersweet – between Picasso and Maar. She was 29 when she met the artist and quickly became his muse and the model for “Guernica,” among other works. He later left her for the young Françoise Gilot and she died at age 89, having lived an increasingly reclusive life.

Their “story was not very simple,” says Lucien, adding that the painting came at the end. “You see that she was holding back her tears because she understood that Picasso was leaving her.”

At a preview this week, Picasso specialist Agnès Sevestre-Barbé marveled at the vividness of the portrait.

“We have a painting that is exactly as it was when it left the studio,” she said. “It has not been varnished, which means that we have all of its raw material, all of it. It is a painting where we feel all the colors, the entire chromatic range.”

“It’s a painting that speaks for itself,” she added. “Just look at it, it’s full of expression and you can see all the genius of Picasso.”

Previously, Sevestre-Barbé notes, the work had only been seen in a black and white photograph. “We couldn’t imagine from this photo that this painting was so colorful, so amazing, really.”

Auctioneer Lucien said before the sale that the work was attracting huge interest around the world.

“We are talking about it in all the capitals of the world where the art market is strong, from the United States to Asia, including of course all the major European markets,” he declared.

Although selling above expectations, the work was far from being the most expensive Picasso work sold at auction. In 2023, the artist’s famous “Woman with a Watch” – depicting another muse, Marie-Thérèse Walter – sold for $139.4 million, the second most valuable Picasso sold at auction. The most valuable amounted to $179.4 million, paid in 2015 for a version of “Women of Algiers”.