A celebrated masterpiece by Pablo Picasso has sold at Sotheby’s auction house in London for £25.2 million ($40,5 million), more than double its pre-auction valuation.
“La Lecture” is a work from the Spanish painter’s “annus mirabilis,” 1932, and depicts the artist’s famous muse, Marie-Therese Walter.
Seven bidders vied for the coveted Picasso work, the hammer eventually coming down after six minutes of bidding to finalise the sale to an anonymous phone buyer.
Picasso met Walter when he was 45 and she was 17 outside the Galeries Lafayette in Paris in 1927, while he was still married to Olga Khoklova.
Source: AFP
