Picasso Sets Record Sale Price for His Mistress

Some mistresses are more valuable than others. On Tuesday night, Christie's New York sold Pablo Picasso's bold 1932 portrait of his lover Marie-Therese Walter, “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust," for $106.5 million, making it the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction.

“I think the Picasso illustrates what has been true in good and bad economic times the very best works of art continue to sell at a premium," said Marc Porter, chairman of Christie's Americas. He said the nine bidders active after the opening bid of $58 million “came from all over: Asia, the U.S., and Europe, including the former Soviet republic."

At press time, the buyer, who had placed the winning bid of $95 million (which, including buyer's fees, amounts to $106.5 million) by telephone, was not identified.

The painting came from the estate of Frances Brody, the Los Angeles arts patron who died last year at age 93. Her husband Sidney, a real estate developer, died in 1983. The estate consigned this Picasso to Christie's along with some 80 other artworks. The most valuable pieces, including sculptures by Alberto Giacometti, went up for auction Tuesday night; the remainder are slated for Wednesday morning.

The previous world record for a work sold at auction was held, albeit briefly, by Giacometti's 6-foot-tall sculpture “Walking Man I." Sotheby's London sold the bronze earlier this year for 65 million pounds, or $104.3 million.

While a handful of paintings reportedly have changed hands privately for amounts surpassing $100 million, only one other painting has broken this ceiling at auction. It was also by Picasso.

In 2004, Sotheby's sold “Boy With a Pipe," the artist's 1905 Blue Period masterpiece, for $104.2 million, including buyer's fees. In 2006, Sotheby's approached this benchmark with Picasso's edgy 1941 portrait of another mistress, Dora Maar, known to be more emotionally and intellectually challenging. It sold for $95.2 million.

The Brody's originally bought “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust" in January 1951 from Paul Rosenberg's New York gallery for $19,800 (about $166,000 in today's dollars).

The painting is a colorful, sensual image of Walter, whom the artist had originally picked up outside the Paris department store Galeries Lafayette when she was 17. When this painting was made, she was 22 and Picasso 50.

Not like his wife.