Art Market Monitor

Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis

  • AMMpro
  • AMM Fantasy Collecting Game
  • Podcast
  • Contact Us

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.

More from Art Market Monitor

  • Reports of the Demise of Shiraga’s Market Are Greatly ExaggeratedReports of the Demise of Shiraga’s Market Are Greatly Exaggerated
  • British Artists—Young and Old—Sell Well in Recent AuctionsBritish Artists—Young and Old—Sell Well in Recent Auctions
  • Puffing de PuryPuffing de Pury
  • Vernissage TV: Christopher WoolVernissage TV: Christopher Wool
  • Facebook and Art Market MonitorFacebook and Art Market Monitor
  • Broad RentBroad Rent

Filed Under: General

About Marion Maneker

Want to get Art Market Monitor‘s posts sent to you in our email? Sign up below by clicking on the Subscribe button.

Top Posts

  • Keith Haring’s 1989 Retrospect Comes to Sotheby’s London Prints Sale
  • Four of Picasso's Women Valued at $28m Come to Christie's from Rose-Walters Collection
  • Sotheby's Evening Cont. Sale, London
  • Tony Podesta's Secret Art Buying
  • A Season of Improvisation: Fall 2020 New York Modern and Contemporary Art Auction Analysis
  • Norman Rockwell's Not Gay. But Is He a Great Artist?
  • Basquiat's Last Girlfriend
  • Roy Lichtenstein’s Top Ten Auction Prices
  • Podcast
  • Re-discovered John Constable Painting at Sotheby's in December
  • About Us/ Contact
  • Podcast
  • AMMpro
  • Newsletter
  • FAQ

twitterfacebooksoundcloud
Privacy Policy
Terms & Conditions
California Privacy Rights
Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Advertise on Art Market Monitor