PARIS (AP) — A vividly hued Picasso portrait of longtime muse and partner Dora Maar that had remained hidden from public view for more than eight decades sold Friday at auction for 32 million euros (about $37 million), including fees — surpassing expectations but far from the artist’s most expensive work ever auctioned.
Painted in July 1943, "Bust of a Woman with a Flowered Hat (Dora Maar)" depicts Maar in a brightly colored floral hat. Maar, an artist and photographer herself, had been Picasso's partner and muse for about seven years, and the relationship was coming to a painful close. The work was purchased in 1944 and had not been on the market since, remaining in the family collection.
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Art expert Agnes Sevestre-Barbe, right, and auction officer Christophe Lucien, stand by a rediscovered Picasso painting "Bust of a Woman in a Flowery Hat", Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025 in Paris. The portrait painted in 1943 will be sold at auction Friday in Paris, was bought in 1944 and shows his partner Dora Maar. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
The rediscovered Picasso painting "Bust of a Woman in a Flowery Hat" is presented Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025 in Paris. The portrait painted in 1943 will be sold at auction Friday in Paris, was bought in 1944 and shows his partner Dora Maar. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
Art expert Agnes Sevestre-Barbe, right, and auction officer Christophe Lucien, display a rediscovered Picasso painting "Bust of a Woman in a Flowery Hat", Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025 in Paris. The portrait painted in 1943 will be sold at auction Friday in Paris, was bought in 1944 and shows his partner Dora Maar. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
Art expert Agnes Sevestre-Barbe points to a rediscovered Picasso painting "Bust of a Woman in a Flowery Hat", Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025 in Paris. The portrait painted in 1943 will be sold at auction Friday in Paris, was bought in 1944 and shows his partner Dora Maar. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
The painting, part of Picasso's “Woman in a Hat” series, was auctioned at the Drouot auction house in Paris. Auctioneer Christophe Lucien called the final sale, to a buyer in the room, “an enormous success,” as well as a very emotional moment. He said the price — 32,012,397 euros after adding buyer fees to the 27-million hammer price — was not only well above estimates but also the highest paid at auction this year for any artwork in France.
Lucien called the painting “a little piece of the story of love” — albeit a bittersweet one — between Picasso and Maar. She was 29 when she met the artist and quickly became his muse and the model for “Guernica,” among other works. He later left her for the younger Francoise Gilot and she died at 89, having lived an increasingly reclusive life.
Theirs “was not a very simple story,” Lucien said, adding that the painting came at the end of it. "You see that she was containing tears because she understood that Picasso was leaving her.”
At a preview this week, Picasso specialist Agnès Sevestre-Barbé marveled at how vivid the portrait has remained.
“We have a painting that is exactly as it was when it left the studio,” she said. “It wasn’t varnished, which means we have all its raw material, all of it. It’s a painting where you can feel all the colors, the entire chromatic range.”
“It’s a painting that speaks for itself,” she added. “You just have to look at it — it’s full of expression, and you can see all of Picasso’s genius.”
Previously, Sevestre-Barbé noted, the work had only been seen in a black-and-white photograph. “We couldn’t imagine from this photo that this painting was so colorful, so amazing, really.”
Auctioneer Lucien said before the sale that the work was of huge interest across the globe.
“It's being talked about in all the world capitals with a strong art market, from the United States to Asia, and of course through all the major European markets,” he said.
Though selling above expectations, the work was far from the most expensive Picasso work sold at auction. In 2023, the artist’s famed “Femme à la montre” (“Woman with a Watch”) — portraying another muse, Marie-Thérèse Walter — sold for $139.4 million, the second most valuable Picasso sold at auction. The most valuable was $179.4 million, paid in 2015 for a version of “Les Femmes d'Alger” ("Women of Algiers").
Associated Press writer Jocelyn Noveck contributed from New York.
Art expert Agnes Sevestre-Barbe, right, and auction officer Christophe Lucien, stand by a rediscovered Picasso painting "Bust of a Woman in a Flowery Hat", Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025 in Paris. The portrait painted in 1943 will be sold at auction Friday in Paris, was bought in 1944 and shows his partner Dora Maar. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
The rediscovered Picasso painting "Bust of a Woman in a Flowery Hat" is presented Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025 in Paris. The portrait painted in 1943 will be sold at auction Friday in Paris, was bought in 1944 and shows his partner Dora Maar. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
Art expert Agnes Sevestre-Barbe, right, and auction officer Christophe Lucien, display a rediscovered Picasso painting "Bust of a Woman in a Flowery Hat", Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025 in Paris. The portrait painted in 1943 will be sold at auction Friday in Paris, was bought in 1944 and shows his partner Dora Maar. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
Art expert Agnes Sevestre-Barbe points to a rediscovered Picasso painting "Bust of a Woman in a Flowery Hat", Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025 in Paris. The portrait painted in 1943 will be sold at auction Friday in Paris, was bought in 1944 and shows his partner Dora Maar. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
NUUK, Greenland (AP) — President Donald Trump said Wednesday that NATO should help the U.S. acquire Greenland and anything less than having the island in U.S. hands is unacceptable, hours before Vice President JD Vance was to host Danish and Greenlandic officials for talks.
In a post on his social media site, Trump reiterated his argument that the U.S. “needs Greenland for the purpose of National Security.” He added that “NATO should be leading the way for us to get it” and that otherwise Russia or China would — “AND THAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!”
“NATO becomes far more formidable and effective with Greenland in the hands of the UNITED STATES,” Trump wrote. “Anything less than that is unacceptable.”
Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark, is at the center of a geopolitical storm as Trump insists he wants to own it — and residents of its capital, Nuuk, say it isn't for sale. The White House hasn't ruled out taking the Arctic island by force.
Vance, along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is to meet Denmark’s foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and his Greenlandic counterpart Vivian Motzfeldt in Washington later Wednesday to discuss Greenland.
Along the narrow, snow-covered main street in Nuuk, international journalists and camera crews have been stopping passersby every few meters (feet) asking them for their thoughts on a crisis which Denmark’s prime minister has warned could potentially trigger the end of NATO.
Tuuta Mikaelsen, a 22-year-old student, told The Associated Press in Nuuk that she hoped American officials would get the message to “back off."
Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen told a news conference in Copenhagen on Tuesday that "if we have to choose between the United States and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark. We choose NATO. We choose the Kingdom of Denmark. We choose the EU.”
Asked later Tuesday about Nielsen's comments, Trump replied: “I disagree with him. I don’t know who he is. I don’t know anything about him. But, that’s going to be a big problem for him.”
Greenland is strategically important because, as climate change causes the ice to melt, it opens up the possibility of shorter trade routes to Asia. That also could make it easier to extract and transport untapped deposits of critical minerals which are needed for computers and phones.
This week, Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said that “we will continue to strengthen our military presence in Greenland" and underlined a consensus among NATO members that the alliance must take greater responsibility for security in the Arctic and North Atlantic.
Trump said in Wednesday's post that Greenland is “vital” to the United States' Golden Dome missile defense program. He also has said he wants the island to expand America’s security and has cited what he says is the threat from Russian and Chinese ships as a reason to control it.
But both experts and Greenlanders question that claim.
“The only Chinese I see is when I go to the fast food market,” heating engineer Lars Vintner said. He said he frequently goes sailing and hunting and has never seen Russian or Chinese ships.
His friend, Hans Nørgaard, agreed, adding “what has come out of the mouth of Donald Trump about all these ships is just fantasy.”
Denmark has said the U.S, which already has a military presence, can boost its bases on Greenland. For that reason, “security is just a cover,” Vintner said, suggesting Trump actually wants to own the island to make money from its untapped natural resources.
Nørgaard said he filed a police complaint in Nuuk against Trump’s “aggressive” behavior because, he said, American officials are threatening the people of Greenland and NATO.
Mikaelsen, the student, said Greenlanders benefit from being part of Denmark, which provides free health care, education and payments during study, and “I don’t want the U.S. to take that away from us."
Following the White House meeting, Løkke Rasmussen and Motzfeldt, along with Denmark’s ambassador to the U.S., are due to meet with senators from the Arctic Caucus in the U.S. Congress.
Two lawmakers — Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican — have introduced bipartisan legislation that would prohibit the use of U.S. Defense or State department funds to annex or take control of Greenland or the sovereign territory of any NATO member state without that ally’s consent or authorization from the North Atlantic Council.
A bipartisan delegation of lawmakers is also heading to Copenhagen later this week to meet Danish and Greenlandic officials.
Last week, Denmark’s major European allies joined Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in issuing a statement declaring that Greenland belongs to its people and that “it is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.”
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told RTL radio Wednesday that his country plans to open a consulate in Greenland Feb. 6, following a decision last summer to open the diplomatic outpost.
“Attacking another NATO member would make no sense; it would even be contrary to the interests of the United States. And I’m hearing more and more voices in the United States saying this,” Barrot said. “So this blackmail must obviously stop.”
Geir Moulson in Berlin, Lisa Mascaro in Washington and Catherine Gaschka in Paris contributed to this report.
A fisherman carries a bucket onto his boat in the harbor of Nuuk, Greenland, on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A boat travels at the sea inlet in Nuuk, Greenland, on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
People walk near the church in Nuuk, Greenland, on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A bird stands on a boat at the harbour of Nuuk, Greenland, on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
People walk along a street in downtown of Nuuk, Greenland, on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
