A portrait of Picasso’s muse, by Marie-Thérèse Walter, valued at $40 million, will be the focus of Christie’s 20th-Century Sale in New York on May 11. The famous portrait was offered by the descendants of the late Swiss art dealer, Jan Krugier.

Painted on January 18, 1932, Nature morte à la fenêtre (Still Life at the Window) was only shown twice after its completion. It disappeared from public view for nearly five decades, until 1981. It was originally one of 10,000 Picasso works inherited by his granddaughter Marina, which she sold off to fund her charity work. It was acquired by Jan Krugier who, until his death in 2008, guided Marina in the sale of her grandfather’s works.

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Vanessa Fusco, head of Impressionist and Modern Art at Christie’s, noted that the work was “created at the beginning of Picasso’s annus mirabilis”, confirming “the strong influence of Marie-Thérèse and the great boom of activity she inspired in his art , from drawing to sculpture, from lithographs to painting”.

1932 is widely recognized as a defining year in Picasso’s career: he painted over 100 important works, including various portraits of Marie-Thérèse, his then 22-year-old secret lover while he was married to ballerina Olga Khokhlova, Marina’s grandmother. The work to be auctioned was shown in 2018 as part of the ‘Picasso 1932: Love, Fame, Tragedy’ exhibition at London’s Tate Modern, which received rave reviews.