Picasso's famous work, titled "Woman with a Watch", is expected to fetch a staggering sum of more than $120 million at auction. Created in 1932, during what is considered Picasso's pivotal year, the painting measures an impressive 51 1/4 * 38 inches. It features Marie-Thérèse Walter, often called Picasso's "golden muse", a prominent figure in many of his iconic portraits.
Julian Dawes, head of the modern and impressionist art department of the Americas at Sotheby's, praised the painting, saying: "Picasso's 'Woman Wearing a Watch' is a masterpiece in every way." It's filled with exuberance and passion, but it also exudes thoughtful and intentional songwriting. Vibrant primary colours explode from the canvas, which is 5 feet high."
This remarkable work of art will take centre stage at a two-day event hosted by Sotheby's in New York this November. The event will showcase the collection of the late Emily Fisher Landau, a noted contemporary art collector who passed away earlier this year at the age of 102. Emily's collection includes a total of 120 paintings, including works by Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, Willem de Kooning and Georgia O'Keeffe. The film is expected to gross a staggering $400 million.
This portrait captures an important period in Picasso's illustrious career and is the focus of the entire exhibition jointly organized by the Picasso Museum in Paris and Tate Modern in London in 2018.
Picasso's first meeting with Marie took place in 1927 in Paris, when she was just 17 years old and the artist was still married to his first wife, Olga Khokhlova, a Russian-Ukrainian ballet dancer. Marie went on to be the inspiration for some of Picasso's most coveted works. 
One of Walter's most mysterious drawings, in which she takes the form of a tentacled sea creature, sold for a whopping $67.5 million at Sotheby's last year.
Other 1932 works, including “Woman Sitting Near the Window (Marie-Thérèse),” which sold for $103.41 million in 2021, and “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust,” which fetched 106.5 million dollars in 2010. Over time, Picasso's passion for his muse deepened, eventually leading to the breakdown of his marriage. While Picasso died in 1973, Marie followed him in 1977.
According to Sotheby, "a sense of liberation from hiding the secrets of his love affair seems to have spilt over into this particular painting, where he freely reins in his newfound freedoms, imbues the painting with vibrant primary colours and graceful shapes, while meticulously taking care of the painting to every little detail. The result is a composition that is both complex and deeply harmonious.''
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