A French auction house is selling a work by Picasso that has not been seen in public for more than 80 years. Buste de femme au chapeau \u00e0 fleurs (Dora Maar) [Bust of a Woman in a Flowery Hat], which depicts the artist’s lover and muse Dora Maar, goes under the hammer at the Drouot salesroom in Paris on 24 October. The work, which has been in a private collection since 1944, has an estimate of \u20ac8m.<\/p>\n
Consigned to Lucien Paris auction house, Buste de femme au chapeau \u00e0 fleurs was painted by Picasso in 1943 and acquired by a private French collector the following August. This collector is the grandfather of the current anonymous owners. <\/p>\n
Writing in the auction catalogue, the art historian Agnes Sevestre-Barbe describes the painting as \u201ca canvas of major historical and artistic importance\u201d which \u201csheds fresh light on how Picasso, in the summer of 1943, interwove despair and hope\u201d. <\/p>\n
Sevestre-Barbe says that even though the work has remained unseen for decades, it was documented in the Cahiers d\u2019art art journal. Brassa\u00ef is also thought to have photographed the painting in Picasso\u2019s studio.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo our knowledge, it has never been exhibited nor appeared at auction. The few specialists aware of its existence had to content themselves with the black-and-white reproduction published full page by Christian Zervos in 1962 (Cahiers d\u2019art, volume XIII, no. 70), and with the photographs taken by Brassa\u00ef between late April and early May 1944,\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n
The auction catalogue states that the work is in \u201cvery good condition\u201d despite \u201cslight deformations of the canvas in the corners\u201d and the \u201cpresence of stable, dry cracks in the red [area] of the hat, top centre\u201d. Crucially the auction house says that an authentication certificate has been issued for the piece by the Comit\u00e9 Picasso\u2014the committee established to verify the originality of the artist\u2019s works.<\/p>\n