For the first time ever, Pablo Picasso’s famous painting ‘Femme nue couchée’, painted in April 1932, is all set to be auctioned next month. According to auction house Sotheby’s, the work is poised to sell for more than $60 million at Modern Evening Auction on May 17, making it “one of the most valuable portraits of Marie-Therese Walter ever offered at auction”.
Termed as one of “Pablo Picasso’s most monumental and uninhibitedly sensual portrayals of Marie-Thérèse Walter”, the portrait is from the acclaimed painter’s most prolific years. “So extraordinarily was Picasso’s output that year, an entire museum exhibition has been dedicated to it,” Sotheby’s noted in a press release.
In this portrait, Picasso evoked Walter, who has been the inspiration for many of his greatest works, with the strong and sensuous fin-like limbs of a sea creature. It is believed that the allusion to the sea here is quite significant as Walter was also an avid and accomplished swimmer. Her athletic grace in the water was a source of constant fascination for the painter. Additionally, the two of them have also spent a considerable amount of time during their relationship by the sea.
