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A Pablo Picasso portrait of his daughter Maya has sold for more than £18m at auction.
It was one of five works that sold for more than £15m at Sotheby’s on Wednesday.
Titled Fillette au bateau, Maya, it’s a “delightful” portrait of the Spanish artist’s daughter, Maya Wedemeyer Picasso – painted in 1938 when she was just two and a half years old.
Filled with color and exuberant energy, the piece was created shortly after Picasso completed his monumental work Guernica, and it epitomizes the joy Maya brought to his life during these difficult years.
The sale marked the piece’s first appearance at auction since 1999, when it sold for £3.7m as part of Gianni Versace’s collection of 25 works by Picasso.
Picasso’s works sold for £18.1m at auction on Wednesday, having previously been estimated at £12m.
Other works have sold for more than £15m including works by Gerhard Richter, Lucian Freud, Edvard Munch and Wassily Kandinsky.
Kandinsky’s 1910 masterpiece Murnau mit Kirche II (Murnau with the Second Church) has sold for £37.2m – setting a new auction record for the Russian artist.
Painted during a transformative moment for the artist, Murnau mit Kirche II encapsulates the beginnings of the revolutionary abstract language that would later underpin Kandinsky’s career.
Munch’s four-meter painting, Dance on the Beach (The Reinhardt Frieze), sold for £16.9m, placing it among the ten best prices ever achieved for the artist at auction, all of which were achieved at Sotheby’s.
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LONDON, ENGLAND – 22 FEBRUARY: Edvard Munch’s Dancing on the Beach (The Reinhardt Frieze) (estimated in the region of £12-20m), from the Olsen Collection, is on display as part of a modern and contemporary exhibition. Artworks at Sotheby’s on February 22, 2023 in London, England. The Modern and Contemporary Evening Auction takes place at Sotheby’s in London on March 1, 2023. (Photo by Tristan Vwings/Getty Images for Sotheby’s)
“This year marks the 25th anniversary of the conference, held in Washington, D.C., that first set the ground rules for the recovery of art looted by the Nazis during the Second World War,” said Lucien Simons, Vice Chairman and Head of Reimbursement at Sotheby’s Worldwide. war.
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“Since then, Sotheby’s Reparations Division has worked with many heirs and families to reunite their stolen possessions, while at the same time helping to retell their stories and celebrate their lives.”
Sotheby’s sale of modern and contemporary art on Wednesday brought in a total of £172.6m – an increase of 15% from the auction house’s equivalent sale last June.
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