HONG KONG, May 15 — After a Pablo Picasso painting sells for US$103.4 million (RM 426.5 million) in New York, we look at the Spanish artist’s five most expensive works ever sold at auction, according to an AFP database.
This ranking does not include private sales, the amounts of which are rarely revealed.
‘The Women of Algiers’
Sold for US$179.4 million at Christie’s in New York in 2015 this painting held the world record for the highest ever price at auction before being dethroned by “Salvator Mundi”, which is attributed to Leonardo da Vinci.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly paid US$450.3 million for the Renaissance masterpiece in 2017.
The Women of Algiers (Version O) was painted in 1955. It had already gone under the hammer in 1997 for US$31.9 million.
‘Young Girl With a Flower Basket’
This 1905 painting was one of the stars of the 2018 auction of the works collected by the late US banker David Rockefeller and his wife Peggy. It represents a young girl nude holding a basket of flowers.
‘Nude, Green Leaves and Bust’
The world record holder until Women of Algiers went under the hammer, this canvas of Picasso’s young reclining lover Marie-Therese Walter — whose French title is the more evocative Nude on the Sculptor’s Tray — was painted in 1932. It went for US$106.5 million and is currently on loan at the Tate Modern art gallery in London.
‘Boy with a Pipe’
Another from Picasso’s “Rose Period” in 1905, he painted it shortly after he had moved to Paris and had settled in Montmartre. Another world record holder when it sold for US$104.2 million in New York in 2004, owner John Hay Whitney — whose family endowed Manhattan’s Whitney Museum — had bought it in 1950 for US$30.000.
‘Woman Sitting Near a Window’
Another painting of his lover Marie-Therese, it sold Thursday for US$103.4 million at Christie’s in New York, more than twice the £28.6 million (US$45 million) it made when it was sold in London eight years ago. — ETX Studio
