Picasso Painting Gets $20 Million At Auction

A sensuous Picasso portrait of the artist’s mistress Marie-Therese Walter sold for $20 million, and his 1905 painting of a circus performer brought $12.1 million as fall art sales began Tuesday at Christie’s and Sotheby’s.

As expected, works by Pablo Picasso dominated Christie’s sale of impressionist and modern art. The auction houses are selling a total of 27 Picassos with a value of at least $70 million at their main sales this week.

The portrait of Walter, entitled “The Mirror” and completed in 1932, sold for more than the auction house’s presale estimate of $10 million to $15 million, but less than the $26.4 million it fetched in 1989 during the height of the art boom.

The buyer then, reportedly Japanese collector Shigeki Kameyama, was the seller Tuesday. The buyers were all anonymous.

Picasso’s 1905 painting of the circus performer, “Boy With a White Ruff,” also sold for more than its presale estimate of $10 million.

Claude Monet’s “Water Lilies” from 1908 sold for $5 million.