A Picasso portray of his “golden muse” has offered for £114m at public sale.

The Spanish artist’s 1932 work, Femme A La Montre, depicts his lover and muse Marie-Therese Walter.

She met the painter when she was 17 and he was 45 in 1927 – Picasso approached Walter through the probability encounter and declared: “I am Picasso! You and I are going to do great things together.”

Picasso, who was married to a Russian-Ukrainian ballerina named Olga Khokhlova on the similar, painted a collection of artworks in 1932 that introduced Walter was part of his life.

The piece is the second most costly work by Picasso to be offered at public sale after the $139.4m (£114m) bid at Sotheby’s in New York on Wednesday.

Les Femmes D’Alger, his 1955 oil portray, offered for $179.4m (£146m) in 2015.

The oil on canvas work Femme A La Montre was owned by artwork patron and collector Emily Fisher Landau and is one among many items in her assortment, which is estimated to usher in a complete of nicely over $400m (£327m).

Ms Fisher Landau, who started gathering after receiving an insurance coverage settlement for a jewelry theft at her dwelling, purchased the Picasso portray in 1968 at the beginning of her gathering journey. It has by no means earlier than been supplied at public sale.

American painter and sculptor Jasper Johns, Dutch-American artist Willem de Kooning, American painter and printmaker Robert Rauschenberg and summary painter Mark Rothko are among the many different artists featured in The Emily Fisher Landau Collection: An Era Defined.

Works by Andy Warhol and Edward Ruscha, who had been each related to the pop artwork motion, are additionally included.

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Picasso painted Femme A La Montre when he was 50 and after he had already reached widespread fame. According to Tate Modern, the portray aimed to silence critics who questioned “whether he was an artist of the past rather than the future”.

Two different bidders had been taken with shopping for the portray.