The seven works by Pablo Picasso on offer in tonight’s sale totaled an impressive $93.5 million, led by Femme au chien, which sold for $54.9 million in its auction debut – a new world auction record for any 1960s work by Picasso. Completed over the course of nearly a month at the end of 1962, the magnificent large-scale canvas depicts Jacqueline Roque enthroned in an armchair and petting Picasso’s Afghan hound, Kaboul. Roque was Picasso’s beloved second wife who remained with him until his death in 1973, and his renderings of her constitute the largest group of images of any woman in his life. Kaboul is rendered with clear affection and humor and is a nod to Picasso’s adoration of these creatures – canines of various sorts are present in Picasso’s works throughout his oeuvre.

Another highlight from the selection of works by Picasso was Mousquetaire à la pipe from 1968, which brought $20.8 million. One of the greatest subjects of the artist’s late oeuvre, the musketeer was one of a cast of psychological avatars that were a means of projecting different aspects of his identity.

The successful integration of Latin American Art into Sotheby’s global Impressionist & Modern Art sales was underscored by tonight’s sale of Joaquín Torres García's Construcción en blanco, which surpassed the artist’s previous auction record when it sold for $3.4 million. The arresting work was painted in 1931, at the apex of Torres-García’s artistic output and embodies his philosophical theory of Universal Constructivism – his most original contribution to the development of abstraction and an idea he first conceptualized during his years in Paris from 1926 - 1932.

In addition, Rufino Tamayo’s Sandías from 1980 – one of the last canvases that he painted of the fruitful subject, as well as among the last works that the artist created before he ceased production in 1990 – sold for $4.9 million.

10067 Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale