Four years after it was first consigned to Christie’s, Picassos Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto(The Absinthe Drinker), 1903, is finally heading to auction. One of the most iconic portraits from Picasso's Blue Period, the painting — carrying an estimate of £30–40 million ($46–61 million) — will be up for bidding at the June 23 Impressionist and Modern Art evening sale in London.
The work had previously been withdrawn from sale after descendants of a former owner claimed title of the work, alleging that it had been sold under Nazi duress in Germany during the 1930s. Earlier this year the work’s current owner, the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation, reached a private agreement with those claimants.
All of the funds raised from the sale will go to benefit the foundation, which finances art and cultural causes in Britain. The painting could fetch a hefty sum. In the time since the foundation acquired the painting for $29.2 million in 1995, three works by Picasso have sold for more than $50 million at auction, including the 1905 Garçon à la pipe, which earned $100 million in 2004.
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