A Pablo Picasso painting unseen in public for eight decades has sold for €32 million—about Tk 455 crore (at €1=Tk142)—at a Paris auction house, surpassing expectations and marking France’s highest-priced art sale at auction this year.
Titled “Bust of a Woman with a Flowered Hat (Dora Maar)”, the vivid 1943 portrait captures Picasso’s long-time muse and companion Dora Maar, herself an artist and photographer. Painted in July 1943 as their relationship neared a painful end, the work was first sold in 1944 and then disappeared into a private family collection, remaining out of public view until this week. An in-room bidder secured the canvas, prompting auctioneer Christophe Lucien to hail the result as “an outstanding success,” adding that the portrait reads like “a small fragment of a love story,” with emotion visible “in her tearful eyes.”
Maar met Picasso at age 29 and was central to his life and work for roughly seven years before he later partnered with Françoise Gilot. After their separation, Maar withdrew from the limelight; she died at 89.
While the price is not a record for Picasso at auction—his “Les Femmes d’Alger (Version O)” achieved $179.3 million in 2015—Monday’s sale underscores sustained demand for museum-quality works tied to significant chapters of the artist’s life. In 2023, “Woman with a Watch” (1932) realised $139 million, the second-highest auction price for a Picasso.
Born in Málaga in 1881, raised in Barcelona, and settled in Paris from 1904, Picasso emerged as one of the defining artists of the 20th century. The rediscovery and sale of this wartime portrait of Dora Maar adds a fresh, emotionally charged milestone to his vast market legacy.