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Sotheby’s Announces Major Picasso Cubist Portrait for June Sales in London

May 16, 2016 by Marion Maneker

Picasso, Femme assise (1909)

Sotheby’s is touting this Picasso work, Femme assise (1909), one of the last remaining cubist portraits in private hands, as a major consignment for the London sales cycle.

The work was previously bought in 1973, the year of Picasso’s death, from Sotheby’s for £304,000. That sum was no small figure in 1973.

When it comes back to market, Sotheby’s will be expecting no less than £30m from the winning bidder. With the pound weakened by uncertainty surrounding the UK’s participation in the European Union, buying power will be magnified.

Femme assise is among a small number of portraits from this series remaining in private hands, with most of the others held in prestigious international museum collections, including Tate Modern, London; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; The State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg; Hiroshima Museum of Art, Hiroshima; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Pola Museum of Art Kanagawa.

Last sold at auction in 1973 at Sotheby’s in London, Femme assise has remained in a private collection for over forty years, during which time it has featured in some of the most important international exhibitions of Picasso’s work, including key exhibitions on Cubism: Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1989; Picasso: Sculptor/Painter at Tate Gallery, London, in 1994; and Picasso: The Cubist Portraits of Fernande Olivier at the National Gallery of Art, Washington in 2003-04.

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