NEW YORK, NY.- Pablo Picasso’s major portrait, Femme au Béret Mauve, 1937, sold for $10,837,063 at Bonhams Impressionist & Modern Art sale in New York on May 13. The painting, which had never been offered at auction, came from an American collector who had owned it for the past 37 years.
The 32-lot sale made a total of $13,839,368 with 99% sold by value and 84% sold by lot.
Molly Ott Ambler, Bonhams Head of Impressionist, Modern, European and American Art in America, said: “We are thrilled with the impressive price achieved for Picasso’s Femme au Béret Mauve. It was in beautiful condition, had a distinguished provenance and I'm not at all surprised that it attracted so much global interest.”
Bruno Vinciguerra, Bonhams CEO, said, “This has been an extraordinary week for Bonhams. We have had two multi-million dollar white glove sales in a week [Roger Keverne Ltd: Moving On Sale in London and Kusama: The Collection of the Late Dr Teruo Hirose], and now an excellent result for this compelling painting by Picasso. It has demonstrated that consigners of the very finest works are entrusting us with cornerstone pieces from their collections.”
Femme au Béret Mauve is a serene depiction of Picasso’s greatest muse Marie-Thérèse Walter. In the early months of 1937, Picasso's emotional life was in a state of flux. Still married to his estranged wife Olga, who steadfastly refused to give him a divorce, the artist was dividing his time between two other women; Marie-Thérèse Walter – his lover of the previous ten years and mother of his daughter Maya, and his new love, Dora Maar, whom he had met the previous year. Politically, the Spanish Civil War, which had begun in 1936, was a cause of particular anguish to Picasso. The tragedy at Guernica, later memorialized by the painter, was only weeks away when he executed this portrait.
Other sale highlights were:
• Tête de jeune-fille de profil dite "la Rosa" by Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), a rare portrait of Pissarro’s Dutch servant Rosa sold for $1,770,313. Portraits in Pissarro's oeuvre are rare and very few have ever come to auction.
• Jetée de fleurs – décoration d'un miroir Louis XVI by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) sold for $175,313. This work, painted in 1910 is an oil on canvas laid down on board mounted into a gilded and carved frame.
• Falaises de Fécamp, Normandie by Gustave Loiseau (1865-1935), Property from the Estate of Ruth Hale Buchanan, Washington D.C. and Newport, RI, sold for $144,063. Painted in 1920, this work captures a unique perception of the environment.
