Picasso masterpiece “Les Femmes d’Alger,” which recently sold at Christie’s for a record $180 million, could be on its way to Qatar, art world sources tell Page Six. The most expensive painting ever sold at auction is said to have been bought by billionaire former Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani.
The work was sold at Christie’s New York on May 11 to an anonymous buyer over the telephone, who was represented by Brett Gorvy, the auction house’s international head of contemporary art. After the frenzied bidding, the buyer paid $179 million, well more than its estimate of $140 million, and the work is expected to hold the world-record auction price established more than a decade ago.
Sources tell us that Hamad bin Jassim — also known as HBJ — was the buyer. One said, “The painting almost certainly will not go on public display in Qatar because of the nudity, even though it is a cubist work.”
HBJ was Qatar’s most powerful political figure for almost a decade. He was prime minister from 2007 until 2013 and simultaneously foreign minister, a post he held from 1992 until 2013.
A billionaire in his own right, he has also served as chief executive of the Qatar Investment Authority, one of the world’s richest sovereign wealth funds that has big stakes in companies such as Volkswagen, Porsche and French football team Paris Saint-Germain. The fund bought London department store Harrods for $2.3 billion and owns stakes in the London Stock Exchange and the Shard, the tallest building in the European Union.
But the Picasso could remain at one of Hamad bin Jassim’s homes in New York or London. He bought real estate tycoon Aby Rosen’s East 71st Street party mansion for $47 million in 2012 and is currently renovating it.
He also bought three apartments at London’s One Hyde Park, including the luxury penthouse, for an estimated $186 million in 2008. Email requests for comment from the Qatar Investment Authority and the Qatar Embassy in New York were not returned.