Picasso portrait fetches £8.1m

Pablo Picasso portrait fetched £8.1m ($12.9m), twice the presale top estimate, at an auction in London on February 2 as telephone bidding from Russian buyers boosted the market for 20th-century European art. Christie’s International raised £76.8m as it sold 69 of 85 lots of Impressionist, modern and Surrealist works. Last year’s equivalent event raised £63.4m from 47 works as buyers and sellers held back in the financial crisis. While auction prices halved last year for some contemporary artists, values of decorative Impressionist and modern works by famous names have remained more resilient, supported by collectors from emerging markets, said dealers. “They want flashy, colorful pictures by the big names,” Thomas Seydoux, Christie’s international head of Impressionist and modern art, said in an interview. “We were surprised by the amount of bidding from Russian and former Eastern Bloc buyers.” The head-and-shoulders portrait of the artist’s second wife, Jacqueline Roque, had been estimated at £3m to £4m. It had been entered by descendants of the Chicago collectors, the late Kenneth and Bernice Newberger, who were guaranteed a minimum price by an unidentified third party.