Picasso painting sells for $67.5m at New York auction

Pablo Picasso’s Femme nue Couchée, a sensuous depiction of the artist’s muse and lover, Marie-Thérèse Walter, as a multi-limbed sea creature, went for $67.5m.

It was one of the highest prices ever achieved for a portrait of Walter, whose relationship with Picasso began when she was 17, The Guardian reports. 

Brooke Lampley, the chair and head of global fine art sales at Sotheby’s, said the 1932 painting was “a deeply lyrical ode to the artist’s unbound desire for Marie-Thérèse; with her fin-like, endlessly pliable limbs, the portrait continues to enchant as it perfectly captures Picasso’s muse as the ultimate expression of his genius”

 A further six works by Picasso were sold at the auction, including L’Étreinte, which depicts a man and a woman embracing in a bedroom, which went for $14.1m.