Picasso Portrait of Dora Maar Emerges After 80 Years

19 September 2025

The rediscovered painting Bust of a Woman with a Flowery Hat (Dora Maar), by Pablo Picasso, after it was unveiled at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris. Photograph: Teresa Suárez/EPA

A long-hidden Picasso masterpiece has been revealed to the public for the first time in 80 years. The portrait titled Bust of a Woman in a Flowery Hat (Dora Maar) was painted in Paris in July 1943 during the German occupation and has remained in private hands since its purchase in 1944. It will go under the hammer at Lucien Paris auction house on October 24, with experts estimating its value around €8 million but anticipating that it may sell for much more.

The subject of this portrait, Dora Maar, was a French photographer, painter, and poet and one of Picasso’s most well-known muses. She and Picasso shared a relationship spanning nearly nine years, marked by periods of passion, creativity, conflict, and heartbreak. This new work seems to belong toward the end of that stormy period when Picasso was growing attached to another younger artist, Françoise Gilot.

Visually the painting stands out among portraits of Maar for its vivid color palette and emotional nuance. Maar’s face appears fragmented without traditional perspective. Bold fields of color, vivid reds, deep blues, radiant yellows, and acid greens combine across the canvas. Her expression, though tinged with distress, seems softer and more open than many of Picasso’s earlier depictions of her. The presence of a flowery hat and a richness of color suggest a version of her that is uneasy yet luminous.

The portrait was largely hidden from view since its creation. It was completed in 1943 and briefly displayed only in Picasso’s Paris studio at Rue des Grands Augustins. After August 1944 the piece passed into a private collection and stayed mostly out of circulation. Known to art historians from a black-and-white photograph taken by Brassaï and its inclusion in Christian Zervos’s catalogue raisonné the piece has been referenced for decades but its colors and full details remained unseen until now.

Auctioneer Christophe Lucien described the work as both “exceptional and full of emotion” and said that uncovering it is a big moment for experts. He framed the rediscovery as meaningful not only in terms of artistic output but also within Picasso’s private life. He pointed to how the portrait reveals a human side, capturing Maar not just as a muse or symbol but as a woman in an intimate moment of beauty, anguish, and transition.

The backdrop of this painting’s creation adds layers of significance. Picasso’s work was facing threats during the war. Artists in Nazi-occupied Paris were often censored or suppressed; Picasso himself was viewed with hostility by occupying forces who considered some modern art “degenerate.” Yet even amid that climate, he painted prolifically. The rediscovered portrait was one among many works during that era that balanced personal upheaval, political danger, and remarkable creativity.

As the portrait prepares to be auctioned viewers will have the chance to see it in person before the sale: it will be on display for three days leading up to the auction at Hôtel Drouot in Paris. Lucien Paris has kept the painting’s existence largely secret until now to preserve its mystique and protect provenance. The identity of the current owner remains anonymous; the painting was inherited from a grandparent by the private collector now selling it.

The estimated value reflects both the rarity of the piece and the heightened interest in Picasso’s portraits of Dora Maar. Comparisons have been made to other major works featuring Maar, some of which have fetched much higher prices at auction. This new piece is likely to draw not only collectors but scholars interested in Picasso’s wartime years and his changing style, especially during personal and romantic turbulence.

In revealing Bust of a Woman in a Flowery Hat (Dora Maar) the art world is invited to reconsider Picasso’s narrative during this fraught wartime period. It shows that even decades after creation some works continue to be rediscovered and reassessed, shedding light not only on the artist but on the subjects who inspired him. For Dora Maar this painting adds another chapter to how she was seen, represented, and ultimately remembered not just in tears, but in color, in presence, in now-unveiled truth.