After more than 15 minutes of intense bidding on 26 September, Pablo Picasso’s Buste de femme – a portrait of his wartime muse Dora Maar – set a new auction record for the artist in Asia, achieving a final price of HK$196.75 million (US$25.4 million) at Christie’s Hong Kong.
Estimated at HK$86 million, the work was the star lot of Christie’s 20th/21st Century Evening Sale, which totalled HK$565.6 million (US$73 million). Of the 38 lots offered, only three failed to find buyers, resulting in a strong 92% sell-through rate and overall hammer prices 116% above low estimates.
The marathon session saw at least 30 rounds of bidding between two phone clients, starting at HK$70 million. Representing them were Christie’s Ada Ong (Managing Director, Taiwan) and Elena Ferrara (Business Director, Impressionist & Modern and Post-War & Contemporary Art).
Veteran auctioneer and incoming Asia-Pacific President Rahul Kadakia, who will officially assume the role in January 2026, brought down the hammer at HK$167 million, with the winning bid placed by Ong’s client (paddle number 8024). The previous Picasso record in Asia was set in 2021, when Femme accroupie – a portrait of Jacqueline Roque, the artist’s final wife – sold for HK$191 million.
Veteran auctioneer Rahul Kadakia will officially assume the role of Asia-Pacific President in January 2026
The prolonged bidding battle unfolded between Ada Ong (right) and Elena Ferrara (left)
Lot 8 | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) | Buste de femme, oil on canvas
Painted on 5 March 1944
80.8 x 65 cm
Provenance:
- Kootz Gallery, New York (acquired directly from the artist by 1947)
- Private collection, New York
- William Beadleston Fine Art, New York
- Waddington Galleries, London (acquired from the above)
- Zen International Fine Art, Tokyo (acquired from the above in July 1989)
- Anon. sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 11 May 1999, lot 144
- Private collection, Asia (acquired at the above sale)
- Private collection, Asia (acquired from the above in 2018)
- By descent from the above to the present owner
Estimate: HK$86,000,000 - 106,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$167,000,000
Sold: HK$195,750,000
Painted in 1944, near the end of World War II, this work stands as a testament to Picasso’s unwavering creative spirit in the face of war and tyranny. The portrait depicts Dora Maar, Picasso’s lover and muse – a brilliant Surrealist photographer in her own right.
By March 1944, Paris had been under German occupation for nearly four years. The city lived in a state of tense anticipation. Everyone sensed that a major Allied invasion was imminent – but no one knew exactly when or where it would begin.
For Picasso, this was a period of quiet resistance and personal upheaval. Daily life was defined by scarcity, yet his artistic output remained prolific.
Picasso and Dora Maar
Pablo Picasso | Femme Accroupie | Sold: HK$191 million, 2021 (Previous auction record for the artist)
When German forces entered Paris in June 1940, Picasso had the means to escape. Mexico and the United States were both options, but he made the deliberate choice to stay. He returned to his studio, where he would remain throughout the war – working, receiving visitors, and living under constant surveillance.
His art was officially banned by the occupying regime, labelled entartete Kunst – degenerate art – by Nazi authorities. Though his international fame shielded him from outright persecution, he was forbidden from exhibiting and was closely watched by the Gestapo.
Despite the cold and the rationing, Picasso worked steadily, often wrapped in layers of clothing, painting with unrelenting vigour through the atrocities unfolding around him. The studio became a place of quiet defiance, as well as a gathering point for the city's intellectuals, including Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, and Paul Éluard.
Dora Maar
During these war years, Dora Maar was Picasso's lover, muse, and creative partner. Their affair began just as civil war broke out in Spain, and the emotional intensity of the time found its way into Picasso's work. Maar's anguished presence became a visual cipher for both political unrest and personal turmoil.
He depicted her through fractured forms, acidic colours, and psychologically charged compositions; she documented the creation of Guernica. Together, they studied printing techniques with Man Ray and experimented with ways of combining photography and painting.
Their creative partnership had produced some of Picasso's most emotionally charged works – yet by the time he painted Buste de femme, it was nearing its end.
The atmosphere in Paris was tense: deprivation was rampant, and in February, two of Picasso's close friends – poets Robert Desnos and Max Jacob – were arrested and deported. Meanwhile, Maar grew increasingly jealous of Picasso's ongoing involvement with former muse Marie-Thérèse Walter, and the arrival of young painter Françoise Gilot in 1943 only deepened the divide.
Pablo Picasso | Weeping Woman (1937) | Tate, London
Close-up of the present lot
With its dramatic tension, vivid contrasts, and bold fragmentation, Buste de femme captures the emotional and psychological depth of their complex relationship. Maar is shown in a wide-eyed yet magisterial pose, rendered in striking black, white, vivid red, and green, and wearing her signature headwear – a playful detail that often distinguishes her from Picasso's other subjects.
Whereas in earlier portraits he combined profile and frontal views, here he presents three points of view simultaneously: left profile, right profile, and full face – all superimposed to create a single, multifaceted image. Dora's face appears intense but strangely impassive, while her scarlet dress and jet-black hair reinforce the painting's undercurrents of violence and emotional fracture.
Measuring 81 x 65 cm, the work closely relates to another Buste de femme of the same year, now housed at Tate Modern. That version, of identical dimensions, was vandalised in 2020 and carried an estimated value of £20 million at the time.
Pablo Picasso | Buste de femme, painted on 5 May 1944 | 81 x 65 cm | Tate Modern, London
Beyond the Picasso record, the evening delivered strong results across categories. The standout in Eastern art was Zao Wou-Ki’s 17.3.63, a dynamic canvas from his coveted “Hurricane period.”
Making its auction debut, the work opened at HK$55 million and hammered at its low estimate of HK$70 million, achieving a final price of HK$85.2 million (US$11 million) – the second-highest of the night. Combined with Basquiat’s Saturday Night, which sold for HK$112.6 million during the spring sales, Christie’s has now sold the top three most valuable works in Asia so far this year.
Modern masters with firmly established positions in art history also saw impressive results. Claude Monet’s Printemps à Giverny, effet d’après-midi (1885), capturing the serene countryside in spring, sold for HK$37.1 million (US$4.8 million) – ranking third in the sale.
Marc Chagall’s Fleurs ou Bouquet de fleurs aux amoureux (1930) soared to HK$15.14 million – more than double its high estimate, while Paul Cézanne’s early painting Fillette, though modest in scale, proved no less captivating. Opening at HK$2.6 million, bidding quickly escalated before the hammer fell at HK$6.5 million. The final price of HK$8.26 million far exceeded its high estimate of HK$5.5 million.
Lot 22 | Zao Wou-ki (Zhao Wuji, 1920-2013) | 17.3.63, oil on canvas
Painted in 1963
130 x 97.2 cm
Provenance:
- Galerie de France, Paris
- Private collection, Le Vésinet (acquired from the above)
- Private collection, Luxembourg
- De Sarthe Fine Art, Hong Kong (acquired from the above)
- Private collection, Asia (acquired from the above in 2015)
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: HK$70,000,000 - 90,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$70,000,000
Sold: HK$85,200,000
Lot 10 | Claude Monet (1840-1926) | Printemps à Giverny, effet d'après-midi, oil on canvas
Painted in Giverny in 1885
60.4 x 81.7 cm
Provenance:
- Galerie Durand-Ruel et Cie., Paris (acquired directly from the artist in September 1885)
- Durand-Ruel Galleries, New York (transferred from the above in 1886)
- Erwin Davis, New York (acquired from the above in 1886)
- Durand-Ruel Galleries, New York (acquired from the above on 7 January 1899)
- Ellen H. Henderson, New Orleans (acquired from the above on 10 November 1913)
- Hunt and Jeanne Henderson, New Orleans (bequest from the above in 1935)
- Charles Henderson, New Orleans (by descent from the above); sale, Christie's New York, 15 May 2017, lot 21A
- Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Estimate: HK$33,000,000 - 55,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$30,000,000
Sold: HK$37,100,000
Lot 26 | Marc Chagall (1887-1985) | Fleurs ou Bouquet de fleurs aux amoureux, oil on canvas
Painted in 1930
46.2 x 38.2 cm
Provenance:
- Colette Boegner (acquired directly from the artist)
- Arthur Tooth & Sons, Ltd., London (acquired from the above on 28 August 1962)
- Monsieur and Madame Philip Goldberg (acquired from the above in January 1963); sale, Christie's Manson & Woods Ltd., London, 2 December 1986, lot 110
- Galerie Tamenaga, Paris (acquired at the above sale)
- Private collection, Switzerland (acquired from the above); sale, Christie's London, 24 June 2010, lot 379
- Landau Fine Arts, Switzerland (acquired at the above sale)
- Acquired from the above by the current owner in 2014
Estimate: HK$5,500,000 - 7,500,000
Hammer Price: HK$12,000,000
Sold: HK$15,140,000
Lot 12 | Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) | Fillette, oil on canvas
Painted in 1872-1873
16.5 x 13.4 cm
Provenance:
- Auguste Pellerin, Paris
- Mme René Lecomte, Paris (by descent from the above)
- Private collection, France (by descent from the above); sale, Christie's, New York, 8 November 1999, lot 134
- Private collection, United Kingdom (acquired at the above sale); sale, Christie's, London, 9 February 2011, lot 39
- Private collection (acquired at the above sale); sale, Christie's, New York, 9 May 2013, lot 212
- Private collection, Asia (acquired at the above sale)
- Thence by descent to the present owner
Estimate: HK$3,500,000 - 5,500,000
Hammer Price: HK$6,500,000
Sold: HK$8,255,000
Other Highlight Lots:
Lot 6 | Yayoi Kusama (b. 1929) | PUMPKIN [TWAQN], acrylic on canvas
Painted in 2015
112 x 145.5 cm
Provenance:
- OTA Fine Arts, Singapore
- Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2015
Estimate: HK$22,000,000 - 32,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$28,000,000
Sold: HK$34,660,000
Lot 11 | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) | Nu assis appuyé sur des coussins, oil on canvas
Painted on 19 December 1964
54 x 73 cm
Provenance:
- Estate of the artist (until at least 1980)
- Private collection, Europe
- Private collection, USA
- PaceWildenstein, New York
- Private collection, USA (acquired from the above on 14 December 1999); sale, Christie's New York, 13 May 2019, lot 32 A
- Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Estimate: HK$20,000,000 - 30,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$26,000,000
Sold: HK$32,220,000
Lot 27 | Walter Spies (1895-1942) | Pagodenlandschaft (Landscape with a Pagoda by a Lake), oil on canvas
Painted in 1929
91.2 x 106.7 cm
Provenance:
- Baron Max Fould-Springer, Paris (acquired directly from the artist in 1929)
- The Rothschild Collection (by descent from the above)
- Wildenstein & Co. Inc., New York
- Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2003
Estimate: HK$20,000,000 - 30,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$20,000,000
Sold: HK$26,120,000
Lot 14 | George Condo (b. 1957) | Reclining Blue Form, oil on linen
Painted in 2011
198 x 188 cm
Provenance:
- Simon Lee Gallery, London
- Private collection, USA (acquired from the above in June 2011)
- Sotheby's New York, 12 May 2021, lot 107
- Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Estimate: HK$12,500,000 - 22,500,000
Hammer Price: HK$14,500,000
Sold: HK$18,190,000
Lot 7 | Yayoi Kusama (b. 1929) | Reach Up to the Universe, Dotted Pumpkin (Vermilion), painted aluminium sculpture
Executed in 2010
200 x 150 x 150 cm
Provenance:
- Gagosian, Rome
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: HK$9,000,000 - 15,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$9,500,000
Sold: HK$12,065,000
Lot 31 | Zeng Fanzhi (b. 1964) | Untitled 09-1-5, oil on canvas (diptych)
Painted in 2008
Each: 180 x 280 cm | Overall: 180 x 560 cm
Provenance:
- Private collection, Asia (acquired directly from the artist)
- Thence by descent to the present owner
Estimate: HK$3,000,000 - 5,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$7,100,000
Sold: HK$9,017,000
Lot 1 | Salvo (1947-2015) | Mattino di primavera (Spring Morning), oil on canvas
Painted in 2007
150 x 200 cm
Provenance:
- Galleria Zonca & Zonca, Milan
- Private collection, Europe (acquired from the above in 2007)
- Gifted from the above to the present owner
Estimate: HK$800,000 - 1,500,000
Hammer Price: HK$4,000,000
Sold: HK$5,080,000
Auction Details:
Auction House: Christie's Hong Kong
Sale: 20th/21st Century Evening Sale
Date: 26 September 2025
Number of Lots: 38
Sold: 35
Unsold: 3
Sale Rate: 92%
Sale Total: HK$565,649,000