Picasso's La Lecture (click on image to enlarge)
Picasso’s La Lecture sold for £25,241,250, more than double the low estimate, at Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern art sale. There was a heated six minute long bidding contest between seven bidders on the phone and in the saleroom. The 1932 painting of Marie-Thérèse Walter was bought over the phone by an anonymous buyer.
The sale brought in £68,834,400, well within the pre-sale estimate of £55,630,000-79,250,000. There were 42 lots on offer and 32 sold, mostly at prices at or above their estimate. Fifteen works made over one million pounds and the average lot value was £2.15 million.
Among the works that failed to sell was Alberto Giacometti’s bronze portrait of his younger brother from 1957. Grand buste de Diego avec bras was estimated at £3.5 to £5 million. Dealers reckoned it failed to sell because of its pale colour.