It was bought at that auction by a Saudi collector and kept in a house in London, said two dealers with knowledge of the matter, who declined to be namedīecause of concerns over confidentiality. Owned by the American collectors, Victor and Sally Ganz. Picasso’s “Les Femmes d’Alger (Version ‘O’)” is the most opulent and imposing of a series of paintings that the Spanish-born artist produced from 1954 to 1955 in response toĮugène Delacroix’s 1834 Orientalist masterpiece, “Women of Algiers.” It had last been on the market in November 1997, when it sold for $31.9 million at a Christie’s auction of works It was the first time that two works estimated at over $120 million each were for sale at the same auction. Less than 30 minutes after the Picasso sale, Alberto Giacometti’s gaunt bronze sculpture, “L’homme au doigt (Pointing Man)” sold for $126 million, or $141.3 million with fees, an auction “It’s incredibly difficult to find big, A-plus-quality Picassos fresh to the market,” said the Paris-based dealer Thomas Bompard. “Three Studies of Lucian Freud” in November 2013. The previous all-time auction high, also at Christie’s, had been the $142.4 million paid by Elaine Wynn, co-founder of the Wynn casino empire, for Francis Bacon’s Once the bidding reached $120 million, the Picasso was pursued by five clients on telephones, often in agonizingly slow, $1 million increments, before finally being sold to a buyer represented by Brett Gorvy, Christie’s The price was the highest on record for a work of art sold at auction, the company said, and was well over its estimate of “Looking Forward to the Past” sale of artworks spanning the 20th century. To a medley of whoops, hollers and gasps on Monday night, Pablo Picasso’s 1955 painting “Les Femmes d’Alger (Version ‘O’)” sold for $179.4 million including fees at Christie’s

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