"Weeping Woman," an oil painting by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), has sold for 1 billion yen in Tokyo, setting a new national record for a winning bid at a domestic company's art auction.
According to i Art Co., which organized the Saturday auction, the previous record was 360 million yen for an oil painting titled "Reiko in a Woolen Shawl" by Ryusei Kishida, at an art auction in Tokyo organized by Shinwa Auction Co. in 2000.
The purchaser of "Weeping Woman" has not been made public.
Crying women were also an element of Picasso's masterpiece "Guernica"(1937), and he repeatedly drew them before and after creating that work.
"Weeping Woman" was modeled after his lover Dora Maar. After Picasso died, the painting was inherited by a grandchild of his. It later changed hands, and was owned by an individual living in Japan at the time of the Saturday sale.
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