Mystery 'Russian' pays £51m for Picasso's mistress
Will Bennett
Telegraph.co.uk
___________
New York (US):
One of Russia's new billionaire oligarchs may have been the buyer of a Pablo Picasso painting which became the second most expensive picture ever auctioned when it fetched £51.5 million at Sotheby's in New York.
The anonymous middle-aged man wearing a blue blazer won a fierce battle with a telephone bidder to acquire Picasso's flamboyant 1941 portrait of his mistress Dora Maar which Sotheby's had estimated at about £29 million. It is thought that he may be a new face in the international art market.
Sotheby's normally places established high rollers near the front of its vast saleroom in Manhattan. But this man was sitting well back and to one side - right in front of some of the television cameras that were there to record the sale of the Picasso.
Using the bidding paddle numbered 1340, he warmed up by paying more than £2.7 million for Claude Monet's coastal scene Near Monte Carlo. He then sat quietly until Picasso's Dora Maar with Cat was auctioned with bids opening at £20 million.
Tobias Meyer, the auctioneer, fielded bids from five people who wanted to own the painting, which had been in the collection of the Gidwitz family from Chicago since 1963.
Eventually the contest narrowed to a telephone bidder acting through a senior Sotheby's executive, Charles Moffett, and the man in the blue blazer.
The price soared beyond other huge sums paid in the past for works by Vincent Van Gogh and Pierre-Auguste Renoir until the telephone bidder finally called it a day at £46 million.
By the time Sotheby's added its commission, the painting cost its new owner £51,560,080.
This was second only to another Picasso, Boy with a Pipe, which became the first $100 million (£54 million) artwork, at a Sotheby's auction two years ago.
People sitting near the bidder on Wednesday evening said he sounded Russian. But he declined to identify himself and was hastily provided with a protective cordon by Sotheby's staff.
May 04, 2006
Will Bennett
Telegraph.co.uk
___________
New York (US):
One of Russia's new billionaire oligarchs may have been the buyer of a Pablo Picasso painting which became the second most expensive picture ever auctioned when it fetched £51.5 million at Sotheby's in New York.
The anonymous middle-aged man wearing a blue blazer won a fierce battle with a telephone bidder to acquire Picasso's flamboyant 1941 portrait of his mistress Dora Maar which Sotheby's had estimated at about £29 million. It is thought that he may be a new face in the international art market.
Sotheby's normally places established high rollers near the front of its vast saleroom in Manhattan. But this man was sitting well back and to one side - right in front of some of the television cameras that were there to record the sale of the Picasso.
Using the bidding paddle numbered 1340, he warmed up by paying more than £2.7 million for Claude Monet's coastal scene Near Monte Carlo. He then sat quietly until Picasso's Dora Maar with Cat was auctioned with bids opening at £20 million.
Tobias Meyer, the auctioneer, fielded bids from five people who wanted to own the painting, which had been in the collection of the Gidwitz family from Chicago since 1963.
Eventually the contest narrowed to a telephone bidder acting through a senior Sotheby's executive, Charles Moffett, and the man in the blue blazer.
The price soared beyond other huge sums paid in the past for works by Vincent Van Gogh and Pierre-Auguste Renoir until the telephone bidder finally called it a day at £46 million.
By the time Sotheby's added its commission, the painting cost its new owner £51,560,080.
This was second only to another Picasso, Boy with a Pipe, which became the first $100 million (£54 million) artwork, at a Sotheby's auction two years ago.
People sitting near the bidder on Wednesday evening said he sounded Russian. But he declined to identify himself and was hastily provided with a protective cordon by Sotheby's staff.
May 04, 2006
