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| Pablo Picasso Head of a Woman, 1921 Pastel on gray paper 65 x 50 cm Private Collection Fig. 1 |
In 1921, at Fontainebleau, Picasso made five very similar portraits of a woman's head, probably inspired by his then-wife Olga. Each is a pastel on paper, measures 25 by 20 inches, and is predominantly blue in colour.
In April 1989 Christie's auctioned the first of two of Picasso's Olga pastels (Fig 1 and Fig 2. colour deviated from the originals). Equal in quality, provenance, and condition, each came to auction for different reasons. The price paid for the first was £3.52 million ($5,985,380).
The next one appeared just seven months later in November. It was one of the stars of the much-publicized sale of a diverse, high-quality collection belonging to the legendary film director Billy Wilder. Wilder's Head of a Woman (1921) sold for a million dollars less, $4.8 million. Almost exactly five years later, in 1994, the buyer put Wilder's pastel back into auction, this time at Christie's in London, and it sold for only $3,266,950.
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| Pablo Picasso Head of a Woman, 1921 Pastel on paper (64.8 x 50.5 cm) Private Collection Fig.2 |
The differential between the second and the third price for Wilder's Picasso is easily understood because the market dropped precipitously in 1991. By 1994 it was still in very early recovery; and coming back to auction after five years, Wilder's Picasso was not considered as fresh to the market as it had been after spending decades in the movie director's home.
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