Le Rêve is a 1932

1932 in art

-Events:*Alvar Aalto designs a new form of laminated bent-plywood furniture.*Courtauld Institute of Art is founded in London.*The Wedgwood pottery firm commissions its first designs from Keith Murray.-Paintings:*Frank Brangwyn - British Empire Panels...

 oil painting (130 × 97 cm) by Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...

, then 50 years old, portraying his 24-year-old mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter

Marie-Thérèse Walter

Marie-Thérèse Walter was the French mistress and model of Pablo Picasso from 1927 to about 1935, and the mother of his daughter, Maya Widmaier-Picasso. Their relationship began when she was seventeen years old; he was 45 and still living with his first wife, Olga Khokhlova...

. It is said to have been painted in one afternoon, on 24 January 1932. It belongs to Picasso's period of distorted depictions, with its oversimplified outlines and contrasted colors resembling early Fauvism

Fauvism

Fauvism is the style of les Fauves , a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism...

.

The erotic content of the painting has been noted repeatedly, with critics pointing out that Picasso painted an erect penis, presumably symbolizing his own, in the upturned face of his model.

Provenance

Le Rêve was purchased for $7,000 in 1941 by Victor and Sally Ganz

Victor Ganz

Victor Ganz was one of the most important collectors of contemporary art in the 20th century.- Biography :Victor Wendell Ganz was born in New York on April 7, 1913. The son of Saul Ganz and his wife, the former Ruth Wendell, he attended public schools and the City College of New York before going...

 of New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. This purchase began their 50-year collection of works by just five artists: Picasso, Jasper Johns

Jasper Johns

Jasper Johns, Jr. is an American contemporary artist who works primarily in painting and printmaking.-Life:Born in Augusta, Georgia, Jasper Johns spent his early life in Allendale, South Carolina with his paternal grandparents after his parents' marriage failed...

, Robert Rauschenberg

Robert Rauschenberg

Robert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations...

, Frank Stella

Frank Stella

Frank Stella is an American painter and printmaker, significant within the art movements of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction.-Biography:...

, and Eva Hesse

Eva Hesse

Eva Hesse , was a German-born American sculptor, known for her pioneering work in materials such as latex, fiberglass, and plastics. -Early life:Hesse was born into a family of observant Jews in Hamburg, Germany...

. After the Ganzes died (Victor in 1987 and Sally in 1997), their collection, including Le Rêve, was sold at Christie's

Christie's

Christie's is an art business and a fine arts auction house.- History :The official company literature states that founder James Christie conducted the first sale in London, England, on 5 December 1766, and the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766...

 auction house on November 11, 1997, as a means of settling their inheritance tax bill. Le Rêve sold for an unexpectedly high $48.4 million, at the time the sixth most expensive painting sold (tenth when taking inflation into account). The entire collection set a record for the sale of a private collection, bringing $206.5 million. The total amount paid by the Ganzes over their lifetime of collecting these pieces was around $2 million.

The buyer who purchased Le Rêve at Christie's in 1997 appears to have been the Austrian-born investment fund manager Wolfgang Flöttl, who also briefly held Van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet

Portrait of Dr. Gachet

Portrait of Dr. Gachet is one of the most revered paintings by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. It depicts Dr. Paul Gachet, who took care of him during the final months of his life...

in possession in the late 1990s. In 2001, under financial pressure, he sold Le Rêve to casino magnate Steve Wynn

Steve Wynn (developer)

Stephen Alan "Steve" Wynn is an American business magnate who played a pivotal role in the 1990s resurgence and expansion of the Las Vegas Strip...

 for an undisclosed sum, estimated to be about $60 million.

Wynn incident

The painting was the centerpiece of Wynn’s collection and he had considered naming his Wynn Las Vegas

Wynn Las Vegas

Wynn Las Vegas is a resort and casino located on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. The US $2.7 billion resort is named after casino developer Steve Wynn and is the flagship property of Wynn Resorts Limited. The resort covers . It is located on Las Vegas Boulevard and Sands Avenue Wynn Las...

 resort after it. Nevertheless, in October 2006, Wynn told a group of his friends (including the screenwriter Nora Ephron

Nora Ephron

Nora Ephron is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, novelist, playwright, journalist, author, and blogger.She is best known for her romantic comedies and is a triple nominee for the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay; for Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally... and Sleepless in...

 and her husband Nick Pileggi, the broadcaster Barbara Walters

Barbara Walters

Barbara Jill Walters is an American broadcast journalist, author, and television personality. She has hosted morning television shows , the television newsmagazine , former co-anchor of the ABC Evening News, and current contributor to ABC News.Walters was first known as a popular TV morning news...

, the art dealer Serge Sorokko

Serge Sorokko

Serge Sorokko is an American art dealer, publisher and owner of the Serge Sorokko Gallery in San Francisco. He played a major role in establishing the first cultural exchanges in the field of visual arts between the United States and the Soviet Union during the period of perestroika...

 and his wife, the model Tatiana Sorokko

Tatiana Sorokko

Tatiana Sorokko is a Russian-born American model, fashion journalist and haute couture collector. She walked the runways for the world's most prominent designers and fashion houses, appeared on covers of leading fashion magazines, and became the first Russian model of the post-Soviet period to gain...

 and the lawyer David Boies

David Boies

David Boies is an American lawyer and chairman of the law firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner. He has been involved in various high-profile cases in the United States.-Early life and education:...

 and his wife, Mary) that he had agreed the day before to sell Le Rêve for $139 million to Steven A. Cohen

Steven A. Cohen

Steven "Steve" A. Cohen is an American hedge fund manager. He is the founder of SAC Capital Advisors, a Stamford, Connecticut-based hedge fund focusing primarily on equity market strategies....

. At the time, this price would have made Le Rêve the most expensive piece of art ever. While Wynn was showing the painting to his friends, apparently about to reveal the now still officially undisclosed previous owner (see above), he put his elbow through the canvas, puncturing it in the left forearm of the figure and creating a six-inch tear.
Ephron offered as an explanation that Wynn uses wild gestures while speaking and has retinitis pigmentosa

Retinitis pigmentosa

Retinitis pigmentosa is a group of genetic eye conditions that leads to incurable blindness. In the progression of symptoms for RP, night blindness generally precedes tunnel vision by years or even decades. Many people with RP do not become legally blind until their 40s or 50s and retain some...

, which affects his peripheral vision. Later, Wynn said that he took the event as a sign not to sell the painting.

After a $90,000 repair, the painting was re-valued at $85 million. Wynn proceeded to claim the $54 million difference with the virtual selling price from his Lloyd's of London

Lloyd's of London

Lloyd's, also known as Lloyd's of London, is a British insurance and reinsurance market. It serves as a partially mutualised marketplace where multiple financial backers, underwriters, or members, whether individuals or corporations, come together to pool and spread risk...

insurers, which would have paid for (most of) the cost of buying the painting in the first place. When the insurers balked, Wynn sued them in January 2007.
The case was eventually settled out of court in March 2007.