The star of an evening sale of 20th-century art, which Christie's broadcast live from Rockefeller Center, the painting Femme assise près d'une fenêtre (Marie-Thérèse) (Woman seated near a window) aroused the interest of six stubborn bidders.
Inspired by the youth and the statuary beauty of Marie-Thérèse, whom Pablo Picasso met in front of Galeries Lafayette in January 1927, the Spanish artist painted the work during the pivotal year of 1932, when he developed a new painting vocabulary and created one of his most iconic series. The beginning of 1932 was marked by an avalanche of large-scale and colourful portraits of Picasso’s muse and clandestine lover. After deifying his classic profile in a large series of plaster busts the year before, Picasso let his young mistress's influence and his own euphoria fill his canvases.
Marie-Thérèse Walter has dotted the painter's work, represented both seated and reclining, going from an erotic stylised image to a voluptuous nude in lilac colour, from an assemblage of shapes to an allegorical representation of a classical bust.
Painted on 30 October 1932, Femme assise près d'une fenêtre (Marie-Thérèse) is one of the last portraits to crown the series of masterpieces of this epic year. Here, she claims absolute domination, that of an idolised muse now reigning like a divinity over the artist and his creation.
See also: On and Off the Canvas: Art's Most Famous Muses
Shown on 13 May with an estimate available upon on demand, the work was the subject of a 19-minute battle before the hammer fell at $90 million, or $103.4 million including fees (around £73 mil). As Vanessa Fusco, Co-Head of the 20th Century Evening Sale, confirmed, ‘Picasso’s jewel-toned depiction of Marie-Thérèse Walter was the top lot of evening, and the first work since May 2019 to surpass the $100 million benchmark, signalling a continued appetite for modern masterpieces.”
The sale totalled $481,114,000, hammering 117% above low estimate and 98% by lot. The second highest auction of the evening went to Waterloo Bridge, effet de brouillard (1899-1903), a much anticipated painting by Claude Monet which reached $48,450,000 (£34 mil). The painting, one of the first in Monet's famous London series to enter an American collection in 1905, was also one of the few still in private hands.
See also: The Myth of the Tortured Artist: Van Gogh
Mark Rothko took third place in the rankings with Untitled (1970), an indigo canvas streaked with green stripes removed for $38,145,000 (£26.9 mil). Vincent van Gogh's Pont de Trinquetaille (1888) was not far behind, reaching $37,400,000 (£26.4 mil) in, according to the auction house, a very short period of time.
The auction was held a few days after Christie’s first 21st Century Art Evening Sale (Tuesday 11 May) which totalled $210,471,500 (£148.4 mil), or 123% above the low estimate. The two auctions welcomed bidders from 29 countries, attracted 1,390,270 viewers and combined a total of $691,585,500 (£487.5 mil). No less than 24 new artist records were recorded, including those of Barbara Hepworth, Grace Hartigan, Alice Neel, Alighiero Boetti, Rashid Johnson and Larva Labs.
