Picasso’s Masterpiece Depicting His Young Mistress Sold For $139 Mn, 2nd-Highest Price Ever Achieved For The Artist

One of Pablo Picasso’s masterpieces, “Woman with a Watch,” was sold at auction Wednesday night for $139.3 million by Sotheby’s in New York, the second-highest price ever achieved for the artist.

One of Pablo Picasso’s masterpieces, “Woman with a Watch,” was sold at auction Wednesday night for $139.3 million by Sotheby’s in New York, the second-highest price ever achieved for the artist.

The 1932 painting depicts one of the Spanish artist’s companions and muses, the French painter Marie-Thérèse Walter, and had been valued at over $120 million before going on the block, according to Sotheby’s.

“Femme à la montre” is part of Sotheby’s special sale this week of the collection of New York arts patron Emily Fisher Landau, who died this year at the age of 102.

Julian Dawes, the house’s head of impressionist and modern art, called the Picasso canvas – which hung in Landau’s living room – “a masterpiece by every measure.”

“Painted in 1932 – Picasso’s ‘annus mirabilis’ – it is full of joyful, passionate abandon yet at the same time it is utterly considered and resolved,” he said.

Walter was considered Picasso’s “golden muse”, and features in another of his works on the block on Thursday at Christie’s: “Femme endormie,” or “Sleeping Woman”, estimated to sell for $25-$35 million.

She also featured in “Femme assise près d’une fenêtre (Marie-Thérèse)”, which was sold in 2021 for $103.4 million.

Another Picasso from 1932 was sold for $106 million in 2010.