The China Mail - New Picasso portrait unveiled at Paris auction house

Entitled "Bust of a woman with a flowery hat", it depicts Dora Maar, a French photographer, painter and poet who was Picasso's best-known muse.

Painted with oil, the colourful work measuring 80 x 60 centimetres (31 x 24 inches) "is valued at around eight million euros, a reserve price that could soar," according to auctioneer Christophe Lucien at Parisian auction house Drouot.

It was painted by Picasso on July 11, 1943, and acquired in August 1944 by a French collector who is the grandfather of the current owners.

Agnes Sevestre-Barbe, a Picasso specialist present during the unveiling of the work, said it was "unknown to the public and never exhibited, except in the Spanish master's studio in Paris".

She added that it was "quite exceptional and marks a milestone in the history of art and in that of Picasso."

It shows Maar with a melancholy but harmonious face, wearing a colorful flowery hat, at a moment when the macho Spanish painter was abandoning her for a younger artist, Francoise Gilot.

Maar was Picasso's most important model and muse, with some 60 works based around her.

His "The Weeping Woman" portraits depict her and they collaborated on his masterpiece "Guernica", with Maar photographing the black and white anti-war work and Picasso using her images to develop the canvas.

Other famed cubist renderings of her include "Portrait of Dora Maar" and "Bust of a Woman".

Their tumultuous nine-year affair, conducted almost entirely in Spanish, began in 1936 and is credited by some with helping Picasso rekindle his creative spark.

Their messy break up saw Maar plunge into depression.

The sellers are divesting the painting as part of an inheritance settlement, Lucien said.

Pablo Picasso sales are used as a leading indicator for the art market as a whole, which has slumped in recent years.

Sales totaled $223 million in 2024, around a third of the $597 million spent on the Spanish master the previous year, auction data from consultancy Artprice showed in March.

Picasso's "Homme assis", a painting of a seated musketeer from 1969, sold for $15.1 million, at Sotheby's in New York on May 13.

The record sale for one of his works was "The Women of Algiers (Version O)," a 1955 oil painting which sold for $179.4 million at Christie's in New York in 2015.

A major show at the Pompidou Centre and Tate Modern gallery in 2019 sought to spotlight Maar's own creative talent and drag her out from Picasso's considerable shadow.

T.Wu--ThChM