Picasso portrait tied to Tyco case sells for $95.2 million
NEW YORK --A portrait by Pablo Picasso of the woman who influenced the artist in the late 1930s and early 1940s has sold for $95.2 million, the second-highest amount ever paid for a painting at auction, the auction house
"Dora Maar au chat," which depicts Picasso's mistress, went to an anonymous buyer in the room who was competing with telephone bidders during Wednesday's auction.
The buyer, a man who appeared to be in his 40s, was seated at the back of the room and waved his paddle persistently during the bidding, The New York Times reported in Thursday's editions. He refused to identify himself as he was escorted out the side door by a Sotheby's employee after the sale.
Its selling price ranked second only to another Picasso piece, "Garcon a la pipe," which sold at Sotheby's for more than $104 million in May 2004, the auction house said.
Wednesday's auction of modern and Impressionist art brought in more than $207 million, the highest total for a sale of its kind at Sotheby's since May 1990, the auction house said.
All sale prices included a buyer's premium of 20 percent of the first $200,000 and 12 percent thereafter, Sotheby's said.
Also sold Wednesday were paintings by Monet and Renoir that once hung in a lavish Fifth Avenue apartment used by former Tyco CEO L. Dennis Kozlowski.
The two paintings, Monet's "Pres Monte Carlo" and Renoir's "Fleurs et Fruits," were among items from the apartment listed in documents filed in Manhattan's state Supreme Court, where Kozlowski was convicted last year of grand larceny and other charges.
The same buyer who snapped up the Picasso painting also purchased "Pres Monte Carlo," an Impressionist landscape of sea, sky and lush greenery, for about $5.1 million, the Times said.
"Fleurs et Fruits," a still life of peaches and other fruits arranged around a blue vase holding bright orange flowers, fetched $2.8 million. A Sotheby's spokeswoman said no buyer information for the piece was available.
Prosecutors said it was unclear to them whether the canvasses were owned by
Prosecutors said they believed the works were consigned to auction by lawyers for both parties because it seemed no other parties could lay claim to ownership of them.
Any money that is due Kozlowski would almost certainly be used to pay fines, restitution and possible civil judgments, they said.
Kozlowski and former Tyco chief financial officer Mark Swartz were convicted last June of grand larceny, conspiracy, securities fraud and falsifying business records. Prosecutors charged that they looted about $600 million from company coffers.
During two trials, one of which ended in a mistrial, jurors saw video of the $18 million apartment and its furnishings, which including a gold-threaded $6,000 shower curtain. In September, Kozlowski was sentenced to eight and one-third years behind bars.
------
On the Net:
Sotheby's: http://www.sothebys.com
