Pablo Picasso’s ‘Girl in a Boat’ (fillette au bateau, in its original French name) sold at auction Wednesday for 18.1 million pounds, Sotheby’s auction house said.
«Picasso’s joyful portrait of his daughter sells for £18.1 million, making its first appearance at auction since 1999, when it was sold by Sotheby’s for £3.7 million as part of Gianni Versace’s collection of 25 Picasso works,» Sotheby’s posted on social media.
The painting, dedicated to the artist’s daughter Maya, was painted on February 4, 1938, when she was two and a half years old. Picasso depicts Maya at eye level and captures her character through implied movement, while her face is rendered with the cubist distortion that was common in Picasso’s paintings of this period.
The painting was kept by the artist until his death in 1973 and subsequently became the property of Gianni Versace, before being sold by Sotheby’s in 1999 as part of Picasso’s collection of 25 works. ‘Girl in a Boat’ is the first portrait of Maya to come up for auction since 1999, as the company notes.
Picasso painted fourteen portraits of Maya, the most important series he dedicated to one of his children, in which his joy as a father finds poignant expression in his joy as an artist.
The reappearance of the work on the market coincides with the death of Maya Ruiz-Picasso on December 20, 2022, at the age of 87. The work will be on view at Sotheby’s Hong Kong (February 5-7), New York (February 11-15) and London (February 22-March 1).
«In his portraits of Maya, Picasso used his most cheerful and bright color palette, and employed a combination of styles to elevate his daughter to the same level as the paintings of his mother, Marie-Thérèse, the artist’s great love, with whom we associate his most romantic paintings. Demand for paintings from the 1930s remains strong, and a work of this caliber is all the more remarkable for not having appeared on the market in nearly a quarter of a century,» said Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Department senior specialist Samuel Valette.
MAYA RUIZ PICASSO.
Born in the French town of Boulogne-Billancourt in 1935, Maya Ruiz Picasso was the second daughter of the Malaga-born painter and devoted much of her professional career to promoting the Picasso legacy.
Maya Ruiz Picasso passed away last December 20 at the age of 87. Her death took place at the beginning of the Picasso year, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the artist’s death.
