Cristina Hodgson
PABLO Picasso’s portrait of his daughter Maya, painted on February 4 1938 when she was two and a half years old, is expected to fetch between €15 million and €20 million at an upcoming Sotheby’s auction in London.
Picasso painted 14 portraits of Maya between January 1938 and November 1939, and the ‘Girl with a Boat’, the painting to be auctioned, formed part of the artist’s own collection until his death in 1973.
The painting was subsequently owned by Gianni Versace, who founded the Versace fashion house in the 1970s, before being sold by Sotheby’s in 1999 as part of Picasso’s collection of 25 works.
‘Girl with a Boat’ is the first portrait of Maya to come to auction since 1999, according to Sotheby’s.
The work’s reappearance on the market coincides with the death of Maya Ruiz-Picasso on December 20, 2022, at the age of 87, which also coincided with the beginning of the Picasso year, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the artist’s death.
The ‘Girl with a Boat’ will be on view at Sotheby’s Hong Kong (February 5-7), New York (February 11-15) and London (February 22-March 1) when it will be offered at the evening auction of modern and contemporary art.
READ MORE:
- The Picasso Museum in Spain’s Malaga closes 2022 with more than 640,000 visitors—close to record pre-pandemic numbers
- Maya Ruiz-Picasso, eldest daughter of Spain’s legendary painter dies at 87
