The painting will be auctioned at Sotheby's in New York on May 3. It has been part of a private American collection for four decades.
It is estimated that the painting could fetch around 50 million dollars when it is auctioned in New York.
Picasso fell for Dora Maar when he saw her in a cafe. They loved and inspired each other for eight years. Maar died in solitude at age 89, without money but with several Picassos in her cluttered apartment.
Henriette Theodora Markovitch alias Dora Maar (December 22, 1907 - July 16, 1997) was a French photographer and painter, best known for being a lover and muse of Picasso.
She was born in Tours, France. Her father was Croatian origin, her mother was born in the Tourraine, France. Dora grew up in Argentina. She was famous as photographer, and also was a painter herself, before she met Picasso. She made herself better known in the world with her photographs of the successive stages of the completion of Guernica that Picasso painted in his workshop of the rue des Grands Augustins, and other photos of Picasso.
Picasso met her in January when she was 29 years old, at the terrace of the Caf Les Deux Magots in Saint-Germain-des-Prs, Paris, the famous poet Paul Eluard, who accompanied him had to introduce him to this beautiful, sad woman. She spoke Spanish fluently, so Picasso was even more fascinated. Their relationship lasted nearly nine years.
April 2006
