The latest papers from an ongoing lawsuit over the sale of Picasso’s bust of Marie-Thérèse Walter (1931), involving the Qatari royal family, Larry Gagosian and Maya Widmaier-Picasso (Marie-Thérèse’s daughter), were filed on 11 March. They claim that Widmaier-Picasso cancelled a deal, brokered by the former Christie’s executive Guy Bennett, to sell the bust for $42m to the Qatari royal family, after receiving, in May 2015, a better offer from Larry Gagosian, who brokered the second deal on behalf of the New York collector Leon Black, for $106m. This included a hefty commission for Widmaier-Picasso. The fate of the sculpture still remains to be seen.
