On 9 November 2023, the global art market turned its eyes to New York as both Christie’s and Sotheby’s presented major evening sales of 20th-century art. In a rare and fascinating twist, both auction houses featured portraits by Pablo Picasso of the same woman, painted just two years apart. The woman? Marie-Thérèse Walter—Picasso’s young, golden-haired muse and lover.

While the similarities between the two works are striking, the prices realized were anything but.

The Numbers

The market gap—over three times in value—raises a tantalizing question: what drives such stark differences in valuation when the artist, subject, and historical context appear nearly identical?

1. Timing Within Picasso’s Career

The year 1932—when Femme à la montre was painted—is widely regarded as a golden year for Picasso. It was a moment of creative explosion and emotional intensity, particularly around his secret affair with Marie-Thérèse. Many of his most celebrated depictions of her date from this period.

In contrast, 1934, the year of Femme endormie, marked a darker, more conflicted chapter. Europe was sliding toward fascism, Spain teetered on the edge of civil war, and the Great Depression continued to ripple across borders. Picasso’s personal life was equally fraught. His marriage to Olga Khokhlova, a Russian ballerina from Diaghilev’s legendary Ballets Russes, had long since broken down. Though estranged, Olga refused to grant Picasso a divorce—unless he agreed to give her half of his paintings, a condition he adamantly rejected. The resulting stalemate added emotional weight to his private life and artistic output.

2. The Power of Size

Sometimes, the market values the canvas as much as the content. Femme à la montre is significantly larger than Femme endormie, which can contribute to higher estimates and final prices. Larger works, especially portraits of key muses, are more desirable to collectors for display and perceived impact.

3. Provenance and Prestige

While both paintings come with strong ownership histories, Femme à la montre carries the added cachet of having belonged to Emily Fisher Landau, one of America’s most respected 20th-century collectors and patrons of modern art. Her name, associated with sophistication and discerning taste, undoubtedly added value.

4. Symbolism: The Watch as a Vanitas Device

Beyond formal and historical distinctions, Femme à la montre holds symbolic weight that resonates on a deeper level.

The presence of the wristwatch is no accident. According to Picasso’s biographer John Richardson, “Picasso must have given Olga a wristwatch, just as, years later, he would give one to Marie-Thérèse Walter.” Scholar Lydia Gasman suggests the watch held emotional and superstitious significance, particularly for Marie-Thérèse. As Gasman observed, “The ominousness of wristwatches in Picasso’s imagery has to do with ‘time corroding love.’”

A nod to changing fashion norms—the wristwatch was then still seen as a masculine accessory—the watch also serves as a personal token, a gift from the artist to the sitter. In this sense, the object becomes a stand-in for Picasso himself, cementing the emotional and temporal bond between artist and muse.

Its first appearance in his work dates back to the 1917 Portrait d’Olga. By the time of Femme à la montre, the watch has reemerged—but now, it’s Marie-Thérèse who wears it. She has not only borrowed the watch but, metaphorically, borrowed Picasso’s affections. Its placement, resting prominently in her lap, draws the eye—and the subconscious—into this layered narrative.

5. Rarity and Psychological Depth

In July 1934, Picasso painted three intimate sleeping portraits of Marie-Thérèse, including Femme endormie. These works, while luminous, share thematic and visual kinship.

By contrast, Femme à la montre is a singular masterpiece. The emotional charge, the symbolic layering, and the formal execution all elevate it to iconic status.

Picasso would revisit the motif of the watch once again in 1936, the year he finally ended things with Olga and began emotionally detaching from Marie-Thérèse. In a haunting, ambiguous portrait from that year, a solemn figure gazes into a mirror, bridal crown askew, as a shadowy second woman hovers behind her. Whether it depicts Olga or Marie-Thérèse remains open to interpretation—but the underlying message is unmistakable: time corrodes passion, and even the most radiant muse cannot resist its slow unraveling.

Conclusion: Beyond the Hammer Price

In the end, the market value of an artwork—especially in the case of Picasso—is not determined by one factor alone. Historical context, emotional symbolism, size, provenance, rarity, and even the psychology of collecting all come into play. The difference between Femme endormie and Femme à la montre is a perfect case study in how auction estimates are anything but predictable. They reflect a web of nuance that links art, artist, and audience in an ever-shifting dance of desire, history, and time.

If you’ve ever wondered what a real art valuation report looks like, here’s a glimpse.

During my time in New York, I spent countless hours at The Met and the Watson Library, learning how to structure and deliver professional art valuations. It was intense, meticulous work—but this Courbet portrait became my “one love.”

Behind this red-haired beauty lies a story of the French countryside, rivalry, and clandestine studio visits. The woman depicted was not only Gustave Courbet’s lover but also the mistress of one of his close friends.

Yes, Courbet is known for his provocative nudes—like L’Origine du monde or Le Sommeil—but this more “humble” painting exudes a different kind of power. There’s a warmth and intimacy in her gaze that makes you feel Courbet simply couldn’t help but reveal his affection for her.

Title: Femme endormie aux cheveux roux, 1864
Gustave Courbet
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 22 3/8 x 27 ½ in. (56.8 x 69.9 cm.)
Auction: Christie's New York [Lot 00008]
Auction Date: October 31, 2018
Estimate: 3.5 Million - 4.5 Million USD
Sold For: bought in

Title: Portrait de Jo, la belle Irlandaise, a copy
Gustave Courbet
Medium: Oil on canvas
Auction 1: Sotheby’s New York, May 13, 1998
Estimate: 2,000,000 - 3,000,000 USD
Hammer price: 2,972,500 USD
Sold For: 3,715,625 USD
Auction 2: Sotheby’s New York, 2001
Estimate: 1,000,000 - 1,500,000 USD
Hammer price: 1,875,750 USD
Sold for: 2,344,687 USD

Title: Femme Nue, 1865-66
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 23 5/8 x 28 7/8 in. (60 x 73,2 cm.)
Auction: Sotheby’s London, 2007
Estimate: 2,998,200 - 4,997,000 USD
Sold for: 3,286,027 USD

Gustave Courbet was born in 1819 into an affluent landowning family in the village of Ornans, near the Swiss border. He studied at the Royal College in the nearby town, so his general education was solid, though his formal art training was mediocre. At 14 he took lessons from minor Neoclassical painter, that gave him foundation, later in life he would react against. In 1840, Gustave Courbet was sent to Paris to study law , but shortly after, her realized it wasn’t his path in life and with his father’s consent and support ( including financial) he pursued an artistic career instead.

Courbet avoided study in the studios of any of the period’s well-known artists, nor did he enroll in the top tier academic institutions for the arts in Paris. Instead he mostly taught himself by copying paintings by Caravaggio, Rubens and others in the Louvre, as well as Rembrandt and Velazquez, often replicating a classical painting again and again to uncover its secrets.

In the 1840s and early 1850s, Courbet developed his personal vision of Realism, which rejected any classical treatment or rhetoric. Although he was quite radical at the time, he still focused on being selected for the official French Salon – the annual juried exhibition administered by the French government and the Academy of Fine Arts. But, as he matured as an artist, he spurned the historical subjects prized by the Academy and painted scenes of modern life rendered in an emphatically realistic style, shocking his contemporaries.
In 1855, disgruntled at his rejection by the Salon jury, Courbet constructed a Pavilion of Realism within sight of the official Salon in which he displayed a one-man show of his works, accompanied by a manifesto that proclaimed his artistic philosophy. The decade that followed witnessed his triumph as the leader of the realist school.
Courbet joined the Paris Commune of 1871 and – following the collapse of the revolutionary government – was accused in participating in the destruction of the Vendôme column, ordered to pay a huge fine for its reconstruction, and imprisoned. In 1873, he fled to Switzerland, where he spent his remaining years in exile.
Talking about the period, when Courbet painted “Jo, La Belle Irlandaise” , which is 1865-66, artists’s focus was on erotic nudes, hunting scenes, landscapes, and seascapes. Courbet worked in all genres but being a lover of women, he glorified female beauty in paintings of stunning warmth and sensuality. He executed admirable portraits and the work, we are evaluating today, definitely “qualifies” to be regarded as Courbet’s masterpiece.
Before analyzing works comparable to Jo, La Belle Irlandaise, I would like to draw your attention to a number of facts that might have impact to the fair market value:
1. The "beautiful Irishwoman" depicted in this painting is Joanna Hiffernan (born 1842/43), mistress and model of the artist James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), and perhaps subsequently Courbet’s lover. Although dated 1866, the picture was likely undertaken in 1865, when the two men painted together at the French seaside resort of Trouville; Courbet wrote of "the beauty of a superb redhead whose portrait I have begun.” Affection between the artist and the model undeniably added intimacy to the painting , that exudes tenderness and passion with which Courbet depicted woman’s features. Art critic Théophile Thoré wrote: "The flesh tones are of rare subtlety and recall the work of the greatest colorists, even [Italian Renaissance artist] Correggio. One may find that M. Courbet’s style is vulgar, that he seeks strangeness in his choice of subjects, and whatever you like, but he certainly is a first-rate practitioner and a very striking colorist.” Market and some collectors in particular might add extra value to “the love story“ behind the painting.
2. It was not unusual for Courbet to make replicas of existing paintings as demonstrated by the four known versions of Jo, La Belle Irlandaise. The reasons for multiple or duplicate versions of paintings simply resulted from supply-and-demand, and in the 1860s, market forces dictated Courbet’s willingness to paint replicas, especially depictions of the female nude. The three replicas of this painting are in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (F537), the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City (F539), and a private collection in Zurich. It is believed, that “our” painting was the first one to be created. The dimensions and features of each of these four are relatively similar. Perhaps the main differences between the paintings are in the colour balance and the extent to which Jo's hair shows off the beauty of its red celtic tones.
3. Whilst female models were clearly common in art history, going back many centuries, it was rare for an artist to actually name them within the title of the painting. By doing so here, it reminds us as to just how close these two were.

I’d like to begin my analysis of works comparable with Jo, La Belle Irlandaise with “Femme endormie aux cheveux roux” (1) , because it is the most recent example of similar painting I was able to find at the the auction. In both paintings the young model individuality being central, capturing viewers attention. Both paintings are similar in size and are from the same period, both have meticulous provenance and exhibition history, with Femme endormie aux cheveux roux being a nude, which is a very strong market value driver. The estimate of Femme endormie aux cheveux roux was set at the level of the high estimate 4 500 000 USD, also because it was one of three paintings leading the auction. However, it was bought-in.
My second comparable is one of the three similar autograph versions, also titled ‘’Jo, la Belle Irlaindaise”. In both Hiffernan is shown in bust- length and three quarter profile, wearing a white blouse with delicate lacework and posing before the table. In one hand she holds a mirror into which she gazes intently. In the other, she runs thick strands of hair through her fingers, perhaps admiring the reflections of auburn, coopers, and browns.
The present work is generally accepted to be the first rendition with the most refined and delicate treatment of the lace and buttons on Hiffernan’s blouse as well as articulation of her hair.
My third comparable work is “Femme Nue” and it also belongs to a group of intimate, bust length paintings produced by Courbet in the 1860s that depict women lost in the reverie. Although the details change from one painting to another, the group is generally characterized by the presentation of a fair-skinned young woman, frequently shown in profile and in varying states of undress.
George Riat, one of Courbet’s biographer was almost certain that Femme Nue was also modeled by Jo Hiffernan. While the model in Femme Nue has much darker tresses, Courbet often altered a model's hair colour in other paintings, and otherwise the critical facial features of long, lush eyebrows, pointed and lightly dimpled chin, full cheeks and plump throat are strikingly similar.
Femme Nue might very well have been posed by Jo at the same moment as Jo, La Belle Irlandaise , but , It seems more likely however, that Courbet painted the nude , when Jo visited Courbet alone in Paris later in the year when Whistler was travelling abroad. Such a rendezvous, very likely clandestine, gave Courbet further reason to veil the sitters identity.

Gustave Courbet’s work has been popular outside France for a very long time. His thirteen best auction results were all hammered in England and the United States and his current auction record – $15.3 million for “Femme nue couchée” (1862) – was set by Christie’s New York in 2015. An exceptional amount for an exceptional painting.

However, that result was, and has remained, quite exceptional because Courbet’s larger works are extremely rare at auction: less than 2% of his auction lots reach the million-dollar threshold. The core of his market consists of works fetching between $10,000 and $200,000, mostly small oils-on-canvas, landscapes measuring less than a square meter. Market for Courbet’s landscapes is stable after reaching its all-time high at around 2015 (which was linked with increasing popularity among collectors from Hong Kong and mainland China).
However Jo, La Belle Irlandaise, one of Courbet’s most beautiful genre-portraits as well as one of his own favourite paintings and it holds a special place in artists’s oeuvre .
I believe it is immune to extreme market fluctuations and even if we would see a readjustment of the market , regarding landscapes or seascapes, present painting has a potential to eventually increase in value , being very ”sexy” and desirable object for collectors and one of the Courbet’s true masterpieces. It is also a perfect example of Courbet’s trademark dark tonality achieved by use of reddish-brown grounding on the canvas. Present work is in the excellent condition, has an impeccable provenance and impressive exhibition history. It is the first and best rendition at the series of four. Even though it is not a nude, and as we can see from examples above Courbet works had a bumpy history at the auction sales, I believe that fair market value of this painting is 3 400 000 USD.

Galitz, Kathryn Calley. “Gustave Courbet (1819–1877).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000,
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/gust/hd_gust.htm (May 2009).
Chu, Petra ten-Doesschate, ed. Letters of Gustave Courbet. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Clarke, T. J. Image of the People: Gustave Courbet and the Second French Republic, 1848–1851. Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1973.
Gustave Courbet. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2008.
Nochlin, Linda. Courbet. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2007.
Gustave Courbet. Letter [to Bruyas?]. 1865 [published in P. Borel, "Le Roman de Gustave Courbet," Paris, 1922, p. 99 n. 1, and in J. Rewald, "The History of Impressionism," New York, 1946, p. 113], states that he has begun the portrait of a beautiful red-headed girl.
Léonce Bénédite. Courbet. Paris, [1912], p. 92, pl. 38, calls this work a replica of the version exhibited at Besançon in 1868 (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm; F537).
Théodore Duret. Courbet. Paris, 1918, pp. 129–30, states that Courbet painted two versions of this composition.
B[ryson]. B[urroughs]. "The Gustave Courbet Centenary Exhibition." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 14 (April 1919), p. 74, ill. p. 73.
Arsène Alexandre. "La Collection Havemeyer: Courbet et Corot." La Renaissance 12 (June 1929), pp. 276, 278, ill. on cover.
R. H. Wile[n]ski. French Painting. Boston, 1931, p. 224, as "The Girl with the Mirror: Whistlers 'Jo'"; mentions another version of this picture at Reid and Lefevre, London (now private collection).
Sotheby's: Fine Art, Jewels, Watches, Wine Auctions & Sales,
https://www.sothebys.com

Christie's | Fine Art, Luxury & Antiques | Auctions & Private Sales,
https://www.christies.com
The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
https://www.metmuseum.org

The Pastoral Concert Titian, 1509–1510

The Luncheon on the Grass Édouard Manet, 1863

Let’s start with the nudity—because art history always does.

Giorgione’s Pastoral Concert (c. 1510) is an enigmatic vision: two well-dressed young men play music, while two nude women wander the landscape like it’s a naturist retreat with excellent acoustics. Critics have debated for centuries whether the women are real, symbolic, invisible to the men, or just very confident in their skincare routine. Whatever the answer, Giorgione created a world where mythology, music, and mystery coexist in harmony—and no one is asking for an explanation. Fast-forward 350 years to Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863), and things get spicy. The nude woman is very real, very modern, and very much staring you down. Her name is Victorine Meurent, and she’s not pretending to be a nymph. She knows where she is: at a picnic with fully dressed men. And she knows you’re watching. Manet takes Giorgione’s pastoral dream and rips the veil off. The allegory is gone; what’s left is reality—with a side of social critique.

Édouard Manet and the Birth of Modern Provocation in Art

One of the most pivotal moments in 19th-century art history centers on a single painting: Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (Luncheon on the Grass, 1863) by Édouard Manet. This work not only sparked an immense public scandal but also heralded the arrival of a radically new way of seeing and making art. What caused such an uproar? Why was this painting, depicting an ordinary picnic, so controversial? The answer lies in both the subject matter and its presentation. When Manet submitted Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe to the official Paris Salon, it was rejected. Along with thousands of other works, it was excluded from what was then the most prestigious art exhibition in France. In response to the mass rejection, Emperor Napoleon III established the Salon des Refusés—the Salon of the Rejected—allowing the public to view the artworks deemed unworthy by the official jury. Among these was Manet’s provocative canvas. Manet drew inspiration from Renaissance masters, particularly Giorgione’s Pastoral Concert. Yet while Giorgione cloaked his figures in mythological symbolism and golden light, Manet did the opposite. He stripped away allegory and presented his subjects—recognizable Parisians of the time—in stark realism. The men in the painting were modeled after Manet’s brother and brother-in-law, and the nude woman was Victorine Meurent, a well-known artist’s model often associated with the image of the courtesan. The scandal arose not from the nudity itself—after all, nudes had long been part of the artistic canon—but from the fact that this woman was clearly not a goddess or muse. She was naked, not tastefully “nude,” and she stared back at the viewer with an unsettling, confident gaze. Her body, lit by harsh light, was devoid of the traditional idealizing glow, emphasizing her physical reality rather than an ethereal fantasy. This presentation made audiences deeply uncomfortable. It was no longer possible to pretend that art was only about beauty, mythology, or timeless ideals. Instead, Manet was holding up a mirror to modern society. His painting confronted viewers with the realities of contemporary life—its pleasures, hypocrisies, and moral contradictions. The presence of a known courtesan among bourgeois men was a pointed commentary on the pervasive but publicly unspoken culture of prostitution in 19th-century Paris. Manet challenged the bourgeois fantasy of moral superiority by making visible what society preferred to ignore. He was not alone: novelists like Émile Zola and Alexandre Dumas fils were also tackling these themes in literature, with works like Nana and La Dame aux Camélias.

Alain Jacquet: The Pop Picnic

Fast forward another hundred years, and French artist Alain Jacquet takes the scandalous scene and remixes it again—this time with screenprinting and satire. His Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1964) is part homage, part pop-cultural prank, and part philosophical jab. Jacquet didn’t just repaint Manet’s work; he photocopied it, pixelated it, populated it with his own friends, and turned it into a reproducible object. In Jacquet’s version, the figures include real-life contemporaries from the Paris art scene: art critic Pierre Restany (on the right), his wife Jeannine de Goldschmidt (on the left), painter Mario Schifano (in the center), and Jeannine’s sister Jacqueline Lafon (in the background). These aren’t anonymous symbols—they’re known faces, now frozen in a pixelated, mechanical eternity. Using the tools of Mec’Art (mechanical art), Jacquet made nearly 100 versions of this image, each slightly varied, embracing both mass production and playful repetition. The sacred picnic had become a reproducible meme. But don’t let the bright colors and irony fool you—Jacquet’s work still holds up a mirror. In his version, the bourgeois setting has morphed into the art world elite, lounging on the legacy of Manet’s rebellion while becoming part of the system he once critiqued. Is this still protest? Or parody? Or both?

This spring, one exhibition stood out above all others for me: The Key to Dreams at Fondation Beyeler in Basel. A captivating journey into the world of Surrealism, the show features around 50 masterpieces from the Collection Hersaint and brings together a stunning lineup of iconic artists — Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, Dorothea Tanning, Balthus, and more.

The Lugubrious Game (1929), Salvador Dalí

Ernst’s Oedipus Rex exudes a deeply Freudian atmosphere. The title alone places it within the psychoanalytic world of myth and repression, and the image itself is haunting — enigmatic and rich with symbolism. The painting reflects Ernst’s complex inner life and his fascination with birds, which he linked to a formative childhood experience. In 1906, on the night his pet parrot died, Ernst’s sister was born — an event he later described as creating "a dangerous confusion between birds and humans that became encrusted in my mind." This obsession gave rise to Loplop, his mythical alter-ego — a demonic man-bird who would appear repeatedly in his work. In Oedipus Rex, we see a figure seemingly severed from its own head, suggesting a psychological rupture — a detachment from reason and a longing to reconnect with primal instinct, dreams, and forbidden desire. It’s a deeply personal image disguised as myth, layered with irony and visual poetry.

Oedipus Rex (1922), Max Ernst

In stark contrast to the intimate psychodrama of Oedipus Rex, The Fireside Angel is a brutal, externalized vision of destruction. A monstrous, flailing figure storms across a mountainous landscape, terrifying and almost comically grotesque. Painted as the Spanish Civil War erupted and fascism spread across Europe, the piece is Ernst’s dark prophecy of what lay ahead. Ernst gave the work a deliberately ironic title, later explaining: "This is obviously a highly ironic title for a sort of wild creature that wrecks and devastates everything that gets in its way. At the time, this was my impression of what would likely unfold in the world — and I may well have been proven right." For Ernst, Surrealism was not just a style but a way to confront a world on the brink. His work here is urgent, political, and emotionally raw — a Surrealist response to historical trauma that feels eerily relevant even today. What sets Max Ernst apart is his relentless experimentation. He constantly invented and reinvented his techniques, exploring collage, frottage (rubbing), grattage (scraping), decalcomania, oscillation, and dripping — often letting chance dictate form. In one early grattage painting from 1925, a swirling flock of birds emerges from layered pigment and scraped textures — an elegant chaos of color and form. His frottage technique, which began when he observed the grain of a hotel’s wooden floor, was an attempt to draw out hidden symbolism from everyday surfaces: "I decided to investigate the symbolism of this obsession." Ernst was not only an innovator — he was also one of Surrealism’s most exquisite colourists. His mastery of tone and texture brought emotional depth and visual mystery to everything he created. Ernst’s personal life was as dramatic and richly layered as his paintings. His romantic relationships — often with brilliant, powerful women — shaped his art and mirrored the psychological intensity of his work. The Fireside Angel (1937), Max Ernst His first wife, Luise Straus, a German academic and art historian, left him after he became entangled in a torturous love triangle with the French poet Paul Éluard and Éluard's wife Gala — who later married Salvador Dalí. In 1927, Ernst eloped with the emotionally fragile painter Marie-Berthe Aurenche, only to leave her for the gifted and fiercely independent Leonora Carrington, a young British Surrealist with whom he shared a passionate and creatively fruitful partnership. Their bond was eventually broken by the chaos of World War II, but Carrington remained one of the most significant Surrealist voices in her own right. These women were not merely muses — they were intellectual equals, artistic collaborators, and powerful forces in their own creative spheres. Ernst’s relationships often walked the line between inspiration and destruction, adding another layer of complexity to both his art and life. Through Ernst’s surreal worlds — filled with myth, obsession, political fear, and visual experimentation — we’re reminded that Surrealism wasn’t just about escaping reality. It was about understanding it more deeply through symbols, dreams, and desire. The crazier the world became, the more Surrealism triumphed — and few artists embodied that paradox better than Max Ernst.

The Fireside Angel (1937), Max Ernst