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Eleven works of art by Pablo Picasso were sold for a total of $ 109 million at an auction in Las Vegas that coincided with the artist’s 140th birthday.
The nine paintings and two ceramic pieces had been on display in the Picasso restaurant of the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art for more than two decades until the owner MGM Resorts decided to sell them earlier this year.
Organized by Sotheby’s, the Saturday event marked the first time the famous auction house in North America held an evening marquee auction outside of its New York showroom. It showed Picasso works of art from 1917 to 1969.
Auction officials said Picasso’s 1938 portrait of his muse Marie-Thérèse Walter, entitled “Femme au béret rouge-orange” (“Woman with a reddish-orange hat”) sold for $ 40.5 million, well over, after a bidding battle the estimates of $ 20 million to $ 30 million.
The painting was last auctioned for around $ 900,000 in the 1980s and was acquired by casino mogul Steve Wynn in 1998 and became the property of MGM Resorts when the company acquired the Mirage Resort from Wynn.
The Picasso auction also featured two Cubist-inspired still lifes from the early 1940s during World War II with “Nature morte au panier de fruit et aux fleurs” for $ 16.6 million and “Nature morte aux fleurs et au compotier” for $ 8.3 million.
“Homme et enfant”, a nearly two meter high work from 1959, was sold for 24.4 million US dollars.
Picasso lived from 1881 to 1973 and spent much of his adult life in France.
In the course of his more than 70 years as an artist, Picasso is said to have created more than 13,000 paintings.
Organizers said the auction lasted about 45 minutes and attracted about 150 people, some of whom were seated in gold-framed chairs.
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