One of Pablo Picasso’s most prolific Cubist portraits has smashed records at Sotheby’s UK auction with an astounding $63.4 million, becoming the most expensive painting sold in the UK for six years. Picasso’s ‘Femme assise’, last sold 40 years ago in a public sale, had fetched $450,000 but this time it has taken the international art scene a giant leap ahead. Earlier estimates had pegged its going price at $40 million. Helena Newman, global co-head of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Department, stated, “The last time a painting sold around at a comparably staggering price was back in 2010 when Alberto Giacometti’s ‘Walking Man I’ sold for US$85.7 million. Picasso first painted this piece back in 1909, when he was only 27, during a journey to Spain. He produced a canvas series based on Fernande Olivier, his lover – during a time also commonly regarded as the artist’s most significant and productive in his entire career.”
