Picasso’s hidden mistress painting set to fetch millions

The artwork has a strong autobiographical appeal

Pricey art: Pablo Picasso’s Femme au Beret et a la Robe Quadrillee on display in London.

A Pablo Picasso painting depicting his muse Marie-Therese Walter with future lover Dora Maar emerging from the shadows behind is expected to fetch an eye-watering sum at a London sale next week.

The 1937 Femme au Beret et a la Robe Quadrillee is expected to reach $50 million at a sale of impressionist, surrealist and modern art at London auction house Sotheby’s on Wednesday.

James Mackie, director of the Impressionist and Modern Art department at Sotheby’s, said, “The painting comes from a key era in Picasso’s career, 1937, when he makes the great painting

Guernica .”

The painting also has a strong autobiographical appeal, said Mr. Mackie. The main subject of the piece, Marie-Therese Walter, was the Spanish painter’s “long time lover and muse”. But the looming figure of Dora Maar, whom he met in 1936, emerges in the shadows behind Marie-Therese.