Picasso painting ‘Mousquetaire et Nu Assis’ fetches $19 million

Spanish painter Pablo Picasso's 1967 painting "Mousquetaire et Nu Assis" showing a manly musketeer and the sensual figure of a nude woman was knocked down at auction in London for 13.73 million pounds ($19 million).

The oil painting by the Malaga native was the star of a double evening session of auctions at Christie's, dedicated to impressionist and surrealist art. Works by French artists Claude Monet and Edgar Degas also attracted big bidders.

Executed in lavish and passionately applied brushstrokes, "Mousquetaire et nu assis" was among the first of the triumphant depictions of musketeers that appeared in Pablo Picasso's work in 1967.

Experts believe the woman at his side, with dark hair, restrained posture and beseeching eyes, was the painter's muse and second wife Jacqueline, whom he wed in 1961.

The painter's later career was marked by sensual paintings of himself as a virile artist beside a voluptuous lover, Keith Gill, the head of auctions at Christie's, said in a statement cited by Efe news.

Picasso used allegorical figures not only to create interpretations of fictional characters, but to place himself as a landmark painter in the history of art, together with the likes of Rembrandt, El Greco, Velazquez and Goya, the expert said.

In the years before his death in 1973, the Spanish artist had a sense of urgency in his work, as if trying to overcome the passage of time, according to Gill.

Another Picasso work, "Femme Se Coiffant" (1956), in which Jacqueline again appears in a sensual pose, went to the highest bidder for 6.75 million pounds ($9.4 million), while his "Paloma" (1954) raked in 5.85 million pounds ($8.1 million).

In the session dedicated to surrealism, "Figure" by Picasso was knocked down for 8.33 million pounds ($11.6 million).