Picasso’s Femme a la Montre became the most valuable painting sold at auction this year when it was knocked down for $139 million at Sotheby’s in New York last night. This was the second highest price ever achieved for a Picasso after Les Femmes d’Alger (Women of Algiers) which made $179.3m at Christie’s in 2015. Femme a la Montre was previously owned by the late art collector Emily Fisher Landau, who bought it in 1968, and has been purchased by an anonymous buyer. It depicts Marie-Therese Walter, the lover of the Spanish artist and subject of many of his artworks. Known as Picasso’s “golden muse”, Walter was 17 when she met the 45-year-old Picasso in Paris, and the pair later entered into a secret relationship while he was still married to Olga Khokhlova, a Ukrainian ballerina.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for September 13, 2023)