Pablo Picasso - Dora Maar au Chat. Dora Maar with Cat 1941
Dora Maar au Chat. Dora Maar with Cat 1941
128x95cm oil/canvas
Sold for: USD 95.2 million
Auction house: Sotheby's, New York
Sale date: 3 May 2006
Seller: Gidwitz family
Buyer: Boris Ivanishvili
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
The canvas (50 ½ by 37 ½ inches / 128.3 cm by 95.3 cm) was one of many portraits of Dora Maar painted by Pablo Picasso over their nearly decade-long relationship. Picasso fell in love at the age of 55 with the 29-year-old Maar and the couple soon began living together. This painting was made during the year 1941, when the Nazis were occupying France. In the 1940s, the painting was obtained by Chicago collectors Leigh and Mary Block. They sold the painting in 1963 After that, the painting was never shown until the 21st century.
During 2005 and 2006, Dora Maar au Chat, then owned by the Gidwitz family of Chicago, was shown worldwide as part of Sotheby's exhibitions in London, Hong Kong and New York. It came up for sale in an auction of Impressionist/Modern works held at Sotheby's on May 3, 2006 in New York and making it the second-highest price ever paid for a painting at auction. An anonymous Russian bidder present at the New York auction won the work with a final bid of US$95,216,000, well exceeding the pre-auction US$50 million estimates