The eagerly awaited auction of MGM Resorts' collection of 11 Pablo Picasso artworks – including paintings, works on paper, and ceramics – held jointly by Sotheby's and MGM Resorts in Las Vegas, achieved an impressive $110 million (£80 mil) on the evening of 24 October.
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The star of the auction was a portrait that Picasso painted on 14 January 1938 of his partner and muse Marie-Thérèse. Femme au béret rouge-orange (Woman with a Red-Orange Beret), was estimated at $20-30 million and was finally sold for $40.4 million (£29.4 mil), making it the eighteenth most-expensive Picasso in auction history, according to Barnebys' bank of realised prices.
Of the seven other pieces that were auctioned for a seven-figure price, the unique, hand-painted terracotta panel Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (Luncheon on the the Grass) deserves special mention as it quadrupled its estimated price from $300,000-500,000 to a final sale of $2.1 million (£1.5 mil). The work was inspired by Edouard Manet's iconic painting of the same name, painted in 1862, now in the Musee d'Orsay.
MGM Resorts decided to part with the works of art in order to make its collection more diverse in the future.
