Pablo Picasso: Auction of Femme A La Montre portrait expected to hit £98m

Femme A La Montre, Pablo Picasso’s 1932 masterpiece, will go on display at Sotheby’s in London where is estimated to fetch more than 120 million US dollars (£98 million) at auction.

The picture was owned by art patron and collector Emily Fisher Landau and it depicts Picasso’s “golden muse” Marie-Therese Walter - a woman who was the subject of many of Picasso’s portraits who is said to have had an affair with him.

The oil on canvas painting forms part of the exhibition The Emily Fisher Landau Collection: An Era Defined, which started yesterday at Sotheby’s and runs until Wednesday (11 October).

Fisher Landau bought the Picasso painting in 1968 at the start of her collecting journey.

The travelling exhibition will also open in Paris, Taipei and Los Angeles and has already been to Dubai and Hong Kong.

Artists who feature in Fisher Landau’s collection include American painter and sculptor Jasper Johns, Dutch-American artist Willem de Kooning, American painter and printmaker Robert Rauschenberg, abstract painter Mark Rothko as well as Edward Ruscha and Andy Warhol, who were both associated with the pop art movement.

The traveling exhibition displays highlights from the collection including John’s 1986 oil on canvas art work Flags and Rauschenberg’s 1962 silkscreen painting Sundog which is estimated to sell at auction for between eight million and 12 million dollars.

The collection, estimated to bring in well over $400m (£327m), will be offered for sale at Sotheby’s New York in two dedicated auctions on 8-9 November.