Picasso painting sells for $139 million, becomes the most expensive work of the year

Picasso's Femme à la montre ( Woman with a Watch ) has become the most valuable work of art sold globally at auction this year.

The masterpiece was the highlight of a fall New York City auction that many considered a highlight of the art market. The painting was auctioned as part of a $400 million sale of the late philanthropist Emily Fisher Landau’s collection.

Picasso's masterpiece Woman in a Mountain

The $139 million price tag makes it the second most expensive Picasso painting ever sold at auction, after Les femmes d'Alger fetched $179.3 million at Christie's in 2015.

Femme à la montre is a portrait of Picasso's lover, the model Marie-Thérèse Walter. The wristwatch is also seen in Picasso's artwork of his wife, the Ukrainian-Russian ballerina Olga Khokhlova.

Walter was just 17 when she met Picasso, 45, in Paris. The two began a secret relationship while he was still living with Khokhlova. Walter has been the subject of several works of art, including the 1932 painting Femme nue couchée , which sold for $67.5 million at auction in 2022.

Model Marie-Thérèse Walter

Picasso painted Femme à la montre in a pivotal year of his career. According to the Tate Modern (UK), at the age of 51, he achieved widespread fame (in 1932), responding to critics who questioned "whether he was an artist of the past or the future".

According to Sotheby's, Fisher Landau bought the Picasso painting from the Pace Gallery in New York in 1968 and kept it in her Manhattan apartment. An anonymous buyer beat out two other bidders for Femme à la montre .

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