The artwork “Guitar on a Table” by Pablo Picasso, which had previously resided in the New York Museum of Modern Art for 30 years, was sold at auction on Monday for $37.1 million.
The cubist, which was sold at Sotheby’s, has been in William S. Paley, the creator of CBS,’ private collection since 1946.
Following Paley’s passing in 1990, the painting was loaned to the Museum of Modern Art.
To raise money for the growth of the museum’s online presence, Sotheby’s began selling off a number of works of art that had been on long-term loan to the Museum of Modern Art.
The Picasso painting by the young collector Paley, which is yellow, pink, and teal, was predicted to fetch at least $20 million at auction. Before a telephone bidder bought the picture, two rival bidders raised the price even further.
Joan Miró’s 1949 abstract “Painting,” one of the items from Paley’s estate offered for sale, brought nearly $1.4 million. The amount was higher than the $700,000 to $1 million projection.
Last month in London, Sotheby’s assisted a charity for Paley in selling Francis Bacon’s 1963 work “Three Studies for Portrait of Henrietta Moraes” for $27 million.
Sales from the estate of former Whitney Museum of American Art President David Solinger at Sotheby’s on Monday totaled more than $138 million and were headed by a swirling 1950 unnamed collage by Dutch artist Willem de Kooning, which brought in $33.6 million.
Solinger’s 1927 red-and-black picture of a “Woman in an Armchair,” another Picasso piece, sold for $10 million, falling short of its $15 million estimate.