Pablo Picasso’s Painting Of Marie-Therese Walter

A canvas by Pablo Picasso called ‘Femme Assise Pres d’une Fenetre ,translated-‘Woman Sitting Near a Window’ went under the hammer, in London, yesterday evening. at Sotheby’s  ‘Impressionist and Modern Art sale’ and sold for £28,601,250. i.e. 45.76 million dollars.The original estimated cost of the painting, dated 1932 and depicting the artist’s muse, Marie-Therese Walter, had been between £25 million and £35 million.

Marie-Therese fascinates collectors because of her profound influence over Picasso.They embarked on a passionate affair in 1927 after meeting in Paris when Marie-Thérèse was 17 and Picasso was 45 and still living with his first wife, Olga Khokhlova. Their love affair is among the most compelling in 20th century art history.She became the subject of many of his most admired paintings and so the primary emblem of love, sex and desire in 20th century art.Marie-Thérèse  bore him a daughter, Maya, in 1935. But their relationship ended later that year when Picasso began an affair with Dora Maar, a surrealist photographer and artist. 

Picasso’s works from 1932 are regarded as the most desirable of any phase of the great painter’s life. The paintings of this period are influenced by his deep feelings for his ‘golden muse’ Marie-Therese Walter who had bowled him over. She turned his art sensual and pushed him to become a strongest colorist.

At first  Marie-Therese’s presence in Picasso’s works was veiled as the artist was at the time still married but when her portraits was shown alongside Cubist and Surrealist works in the major Picasso retrospective of 1932 at Galerie Georges Petit in Paris and at the Kunsthaus in Zurich.Picasso’s depiction of Marie-Therese Walter is one of the artist’s most iconic images.Of his ten most expensive paintings, four depict her, including Nude, Green Leaves and Bust.In recent years  Picasso’s portraits of Marie-Therese have peen popular with art collectors, with La Lecture selling for £25 million – double its pre-sale estimate – in Sotheby’s February 2011 sale, and Nature Morte aux Tulipes selling in Sotheby’s November 2012 sale for 41.5m US dollars (£26.5m).

This particular surrealist portrait ,’Woman Sitting Near a Window’ termed ‘stunning and monumental’by art experts, is striking and notably modern-looking and from one of the artist’s most celebrated periods.Most of the examples from the year 1932 and of his Marie-Therese subject are in museums around the world. So, it represented a real opportunity for collectors to buy a museum quality painting coming out of private hands and so caused much excitement in the art world.