Dora Maar au Chat

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Dora Maar au Chat

1941

by Pablo Picasso

In Private Collection

Dora Maar With Cat depicts Dora Maar, the painter's mistress, seated on a chair with a small cat perched on her shoulders. This painting is world-famous and is now one of the world's most expensive paintings.

The canvas (50 ½ by 37 ½ inches) was one of many portraits of Dora Maar painted by Pablo Picasso over their nearly decade-long relationship. Picasso fell in love with Dora Maar at the age of 55 and soon began living with her. This painting was done during the year 1941, when the Nazis were occupying France. In the 1940s, the painting was obtained by Chicago collectors Leigh and Mary Block. They sold the painting in 1963. After that, the painting was never shown till the 21st century.

During 2005 and 2006, the Dora Maar au Chat, then owned by Gidwitz family of Chicago, was shown worldwide as part of Sotheby's exhibitions in London, Hong Kong and New York. It came up for sale in an auction of impressionist works held at Sotheby's on May 3, 2006 in New York. An anonymous bidder present at the New York auction won the work with a final bid of 95,216,000 $ well exceeding the pre-auction 50,000,000 $ estimates. The identity of the bidder, who spent more than 100,000,000 $ in total and purchased an 1883 Monet seascape and a 1978 Chagall in addition to the Picasso, was a topic of much speculation. Apparently a novice bidder, though possibly acting as an agent for a more well-known collector, the anonymous buyer may have been unknown at the start of the auction even to Sotheby's officials. As of mid-2006, the ownership of the Dora Maar au Chat is still unknown to the general public.