Hyperinflation in Art Investment Market as Picasso Sells for $179 Million
By: GoldCore
GoldSeek.com
Tuesday, 12 May 2015
Pablo Picasso’s “Les Femme d’ Alger” sold at Christie’s in New York last night for $179 million – the highest price ever paid at auction for a painting.
It smashed the record previously held by Francis Bacon’s “Three Studies of Lucian Freud” which sold for $142 million in 2013.
The painting appreciated nearly $150 million in less than 20 years. Hyperinflation appears to be taking hold in the art investment market.
Painted in 1955, Les Femmes d’ Alger is based on Delacroix’s 1843 painting “Femmes d’Alger dans leur Appartement” a sensuous depiction of how the European imagined a harem scene with luxuriantly dressed woman smoking hashish from a hookah. Picasso’s depiction is more overtly erotic exploring the strange psychology of sexual fascination with the female form.
The record breaking price for the piece reflects the ever expanding bubble in high end art. In February, Bloomberg reported that Gauguin’s “When Will You Marry” was rumoured to have been sold to the Qatar Museum Authority for almost $300 million – one of the highest prices ever paid for a painting.
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