Picasso portrait fetches ?75 million

Picasso's `Dora Maar with a cat´ (1941) was auctioned off by Sotheby's in New York last night for $95.2 million (?75 million), slightly less than the record of $104 million (?82 million) that was paid for the same artist's `Boy with a pipe´ in 2004.
It was thought that the portrait would fetch a maximum of $50 million, although a second Picasso had fetched twice its reserve price of $15 million when it went under the hammer the evening before.
`Dora Maar au chat,´ which is a colourful and impactful portrait of one of the artist's former lovers and muses with a cat sitting on her lap (photo), has been off the market for the last fifty years.

It is thought that Ms Maar, whose tempestuous relationship with the artist spanned the 1930s and 40s, helped paint the iconic `Guernica,´ which depicts the devastating blitz on the Basque town by Nazi dive-bombers during the Spanish Civil War.

Pablo Picasso was born in Málaga on the 25th October, 1881, and died in France on the 8th April, 1973.