Pablo Picasso’s Femmes d’Alger (1955) is set to become the most expensive painting in the world.
Picasso’s Femmes d’ Alger for auction, starting at $100 million.
The Femmes d’Alger (Women of Algiers), is a vibrantly-hued piece, painting by Picasso in 1955. It belongs to an unnamed private owner and is now considered the most important painting by Picasso. Before Femmes d’ ALger, Picasso’s most famous painting was, Guernica, named after a village in the Basque country which bombed during the Spanish civil war. Another painting by Picasso, the La Coiffeuse (The Hairdresser) painted in 1911 made headlines when it was stolen in France, and showed up 14 years later in New York.
Picasso a Spaniard, spent most of his life in France, died in 1973 aged 91. He painted a series of 15 variations of Femmes d’Alger between December 1954 and February 1955. Today’s auction for Femmes d’Adger (Version “O”) is the last of the 15 paintings in the series.
Pablo Picasso’s inspiration for Femmes d’Adger comes from the famous 19th century painting by Delacroix, Women of Algiers in their Apartment, which depicts Algerian women in a harem smoking a hookah. The original 15 versions were all owned by the late private New York collectors Victor and Sally Ganz, who bought the entire series from Picasso’s dealer Daniel Kahnweiler in Paris June 1956 for around $250,000. Later the series was broken up and sold to art dealers, and the Femmes d’ Alger (Version “O”) was sold to private collectors. After which the painting was last auctioned at Christie’s in New York, for 31.9 million. Today the starting bid is set to begin at $100 million and estimated to sell for over $140 million. If the auction goes over $142 mil Picasso’s Femmes d’Adger (Version “O”) will be the most expensive painting ever sold at auction.
UPDATE: SOLD!! Femmes d’Adgers, May 11 2015 at Christie’s for $179 million.
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