Blue Period Picasso could be record-breaker at London auction

Mar 17, 2010, 16:01 GMT

London - A celebrated masterpiece by Pablo Picasso, owned by Britain's millionaire musical supremo Andrew Lloyd Webber, is to be auctioned in London this summer with a record pre-sale estimate of up to 40 million pounds (61 million dollars).

Auction house Christie's said Wednesday that the 1903 painting Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto (The Absinthe Drinker) will be auctioned on June 23, with the proceeds going to the Lloyd Webber Foundation, a charity founded by the composer in 1992.

The painting from Picasso's Blue Period will be offered with a pre-sale estimate of between 30 and 40 million pounds - the highest for any work of art ever offered in Europe, Christie's said.

Lloyd Webber, whose latest musical Love Never Dies has just been launched, bought the Picasso for 29.2 million dollars at an auction in New York in 1995.

It shows de Soto, who was also a painter and shared a studio in Barcelona with Picasso, sitting with a pipe and a glass of absinthe.

The portrait was meant to be sold at Christie's in New York in 2006, but was withdrawn from auction after a dispute over its ownership with heirs of Jewish banker Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1875-1935) which was, however, resolved earlier this year.

'The art market has changed radically since 1995. Collectors have become ever more focused on iconic museum quality works,' said Jussi Pylkkanen of Christie's.

Last month, a life-size bronze sculpture by Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti fetched a world record price of 65 million pounds at auctioneers Sotheby's in London.