Topline
A painting by Pablo Picasso that was previously owned by Sean Connery—the late Scottish actor who was the first to play James Bond in the eponymous hit franchise—sold for $22 million Thursday during an auction in Hong Kong.
Sir Sean and Lady Connery attend the “Dressed To Kilt” charity fashion show benefiting Friends of … [+]
Getty Images
Key Facts
Picasso’s 1969 painting “Buste d’homme dans un cadre” is an abstract portrait of a mosquetero, or musketeer, a subject the artist often went back to depicting during the last decade of his life.
Musketeers were swashbuckling soldiers who carried muskets and served as a popular subject for old masters like Rembrandt and Diego Velázquez, artists with whom experts believe Picasso was consciously aligning himself with his own series of musketeer paintings.
The painting was “one of many Picassos” Connery owned, according to auction house Christie’s, which noted the actor usually preferred works from earlier in Picasso’s career.
However, Connery was drawn to the painting’s “expressive power and freedom,” Connery’s son Stephane said in a statement, adding that his father loved the thick, impasto surface and how Picasso painted a gold frame into the portrait.
The winning bid exceeded initial estimates from the auction house, which expected “Buste d’homme” to fetch around $19 million Thursday.
A portion of proceeds will be donated to a fund set up by family in Connery’s name to support philanthropy in Connery’s native Scotland and the Bahamas, where he lived for more than three decades and where he died last year.
Pablo Picasso’s 1969 painting “Buste d’homme dans un cadre.”
Christie’s
Key Background
Connery died last year at home in the Bahamas. The actor was 90 years old and had “been unwell for some time,” his family told the BBC. Connery was most well known for being the first actor to play the British spy James Bond, first in Dr. No in 1962, before going on to star in a total of seven Bond films. Connery was knighted by Queen Elizabeth at Holyrood Palace in his native Edinburgh in 2000. Last week, Connery’s family announced they were also auctioning the late actor’s 1964 Aston Martin DB5. The model is known as “the Bond car” that Connery drove in the 1964 film Goldfinger, and in 2018 Connery purchased one for himself. It’s expected to sell for as much as $1.8 million in August, and a portion of those proceeds will also go to the Connery Family Philanthropy Fund.
Further Reading
Rarely Seen Portrait Of Pablo Picasso’s Muse Makes Auction Debut (Forbes)
Picasso Portrait Of Dora Maar Up For Auction As His Muses Have Their Moment (Forbes)
Missing Picasso Found? Photo Suggests Philippines’ Imelda Marcos Might Still Have It. (Forbes)
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