Gagosian has a show based around Picasso’s fixation on his young mistress, Marie-Therese Walter. The world’s top auction price for a painting is for one of the works featuring Ms. Walter and Sotheby’s is selling Femmes Lisant as the lead work in their Impressionist and Modern sale.
Now Christie’s announces that their June sale in London will feature another Marie-Therese work, this one from 1935 (estimated at £9-£12m,) whose sale will benefit research in Australia:
Jeune fille endormie was executed in 1935 and is a striking example from this celebrated series of portraits. The present example shows Marie-Thérèse asleep and offers an evocative glimpse of the lovers’ intimate universe. Executed in bold, expressionist colours and brush strokes, it was originally acquired by Walter P Chrysler Jr soon after it was painted, and then changed hands just once before it was donated to Sydney University in 2010. It was shown at the celebrated Picasso retrospective at MoMA, New York, in 1939, which toured to Chicago, St Louis and Boston in 1940. It was then included in an exhibition of works from the Chrysler Collection in 1941, and has since been hidden from view in a private collection.