Buste De Femme (Dora Maar)

This vibrant 1938 bust portrait captures Dora Maar at the height of Picasso's passionate and tumultuous relationship with his muse, rendered in the kaleidoscopic fractured planes and simultaneous perspectives that define his mature Cubist portraiture. The richly impastoed surface explodes with saturated reds, greens, blues, and yellows, while the elaborate hat and swirling decorative forms convey both Maar's fashionable sophistication and Picasso's intense psychological engagement with his subject. Painted during one of the most creatively fertile periods of Picasso's career—concurrent with Guernica and its aftermath—portraits of Dora Maar from this era represent some of the most sought-after works in the artist's oeuvre, consistently commanding the highest echelons of the auction market. The yellow fringe-like marks along the edges lend a distinctive compositional framing that suggests the curtained intimacy of the artist's studio.