Tuesday 8 February 2011

The young muse

Tonight Sotheby's in London is auctioning Picasso's La Lecture. It is estimated to fetch between 14 million and 21 million €.
His muse for the painting was Marie-Thérèse Walter. They met outside Galeries Lafayette where she had been buying clothes. He was stunned by her beauty and asked her if he could paint her portret. She was just 17. He was 42 and the chouchou of the Parisian beau monde. She had never heard of him. Here she is with her mother's dog.
The headline in a Flemish paper this morning had this caption: "Sooner or later all Picasso's women ended up on museum walls."

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I love the old time photo. Still can't wrap my mind around the price of the artwork!

Whispering Walls said...

Striking stripes!