Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto
(The Absinthe Drinker), 1903
Proceeds to benefit The Andrew Lloyd Webber Art Foundation
Estimate: £30 million to £40 million
Christie’s to sell Picasso’s ‘Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto (The Absinthe Drinker)’
Painted by the most influential artist of the 20th century, ‘Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto’, 1903 comes from the artist’s celebrated Blue Period, arguably the greatest period in Picasso’s career. The painting will be priced at £30 million to £40 million and all the proceeds will benefit The Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation, a charity founded by the celebrated composer in 1992. Working for the public benefit, The Foundation focuses on the promotion of arts, culture and heritage in Britain
March 18th 2010, source: Christie’s
The painting had been consigned for sale at Christie’s in New York in November 2006 but was withdrawn from the auction at the request of the vendor after an 11th hour ownership challenge based on a sale of the painting in the 1930s. This challenge has since been resolved by agreement and the claimants have withdrawn all claims to the painting, leaving the Foundation free to sell the work.
The painting was acquired by The Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation at auction in New York in May 1995 for $29.2 million from the Stralem Collection using funds donated for this purpose by Lord Lloyd Webber. Since then the market for works by Picasso has grown considerably and over 10 works have sold in excess of this figure, including 3 works which have realised over $50 million. In 2004 the Rose Period Garçon à la pipe—painted only two years after Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto—became the first painting to sell at auction for over $100 million.
Picasso said his paintings were his autobiography, and nothing expresses that more than Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto: this picture perfectly demonstrates the artist’s skills at the peak of his Blue Period, while also providing an intimate insight into his own life and circle of friends. Sitting with his glass of absinthe and his pipe, the smoke curling upwards, Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto is the very embodiment of Blue Period aesthetic, rendered in bold, loose, swirling brushstrokes that recall El Greco and trumpet Picasso’s virtuosity.
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