Pablo Picasso's painting "The Reading" (La Lecture) was sold for 25 million pounds ($40,2 million) at an auction in London.
The auction house "Sotheby's" announced that the painting was bought by an anonymous buyer over the phone, and that the expected price was 18 million pounds ($28,9 million), the AP agency reported.
The painting, created in 1932, depicts Picasso's young lover Marie-Thérèse Walter in an armchair, with a book in her hands.
Valterova was 17 years old when she met Picasso, and later had a daughter, Maja, with him.
"Reading" represents the first portrait of Marie-Thérèse, whose character had until then been hidden in Picasso's works, and the lover of the Spanish painter later inspired several works, such as "Dream" (Le Reve) and "Nude, Green Leaves and Bust" (Nu , Feuilles Vertes et Buste).
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