--- title: "Pablo Picasso: results at LLB Auction" source: LLB Auction canonical: https://www.llb-auction.com/artists/pablo-picasso currency: EUR price_basis: hammer, excluding buyer's premium and VAT scope: results at this auction house only --- # Pablo Picasso | Fact | Value | |---|---| | Born | 1881 | | Died | 1973 | | Nationality | Spanish | | Movements | Cubism, Surrealism | | Lots offered at LLB Auction | 3 | | Lots sold | 3 | | Range of prices realised | €1,027 to €5,700 | | Median price realised | €1,500 | ## Lots | Work | Medium | Sale | Date | Estimate | Hammer | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | Lot 62. Pablo Picasso, Mère et Enfant (1966) | Print | Contemporary Art Spring 2026 | 26 May 2026 | €500 to €1,000 | €1,500 | | LOT 28. Deux nus assis | Etching | Contemporary Art - December 2025 | 23 December 2025 | €5,000 to €10,000 | €5,700 | | LOT 38. Mère et Enfant (1966) | Print | Contemporary Art: Canvas & Editions 2025 | 30 November 2025 | €500 to €1,000 | €1,027 | ## About Pablo Picasso ### Life and work Pablo Ruiz Picasso was born in Málaga on 25 October 1881 and died at Mougins in the south of France on 8 April 1973. Trained by his father and at the academies of Barcelona and Madrid, he settled in Paris in 1904. The Blue and Rose periods gave way in 1907 to Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, and with Georges Braque he built Cubism over the years that followed. Neoclassicism, Surrealist distortion, the political statement of Guernica in 1937 and a long late output at Vallauris and Mougins came after. He was also, for some sixty years, among the most prolific printmakers in the history of the medium, and in his last decades a potter working with the Madoura workshop at Vallauris. ### Disciplines and how they differ Four markets carry this name and they barely overlap. The paintings and sculptures belong to a handful of salerooms and to museums. The Madoura ceramics, editioned in the hundreds, form a market of their own. The printed work runs from the great intaglio suites, the Saltimbanques of 1905, the Suite Vollard of the 1930s, through the Mourlot lithographs of the late 1940s and the Arnéra linocuts of the 1960s. And beneath all of it sits an enormous body of posters and reproductive lithographs issued after his designs and catalogued as after Picasso. LLB Auction has handled the printed end: two prints and one etching, all three sold. ### What a specialist examines The first question is always whether the sheet is an original print or a reproduction made after one. The catalogue numbers are the shorthand, Bloch for the graphic work as a whole, Baer for the intaglio, Mourlot for the lithographs, Czwiklitzer for the posters, and a saleroom that cannot cite one is telling you something. The second question is the signature and how it got onto the sheet. A pencil signature with an arabic number from a small edition is one thing, a stamped signature from an edition of a thousand another, a poster from an edition of fifteen thousand designed jointly with a lithographer another again. Paper is diagnostic: Montval laid with the Vollard watermark for the 1939 printing of the Suite Vollard, Arches for the Mourlot lithographs, ordinary wove for the posters. Then condition, which for the intaglios turns on the strength of the burr as much as on foxing, staining and mat burn. ### Market position The spread is the whole story. At Phillips in New York in October 2024 a signed drypoint from La Suite Vollard, Minotaure caressant une dormeuse, made USD 63,500. At Bonhams in London in July 2015 the lithograph Femme au Fauteuil No. 4 of 1949, signed and numbered from an edition of fifty and printed by Mourlot, made GBP 47,500. At the same house in Los Angeles in June 2025, La Danse des Faunes of 1957, a lithograph from an edition of a thousand carrying the artist's stamped rather than written signature, made USD 896. And a Côte d'Azur travel poster of 1962, from an edition of fifteen thousand, made GBP 1,280 at Bonhams in London in September 2024. One name, four orders of magnitude. Each figure includes the buyer's premium as the house prints it. ### What a seller should have ready The sheet photographed complete, including all four margins, and any watermark photographed against the light. The reverse in full. The signature in close detail, with a note of whether it is in pencil, in ink, printed within the image or stamped. The edition number exactly as written, and the total edition if it appears anywhere on the sheet. Sheet and image measurements in millimetres. Any publisher's or printer's credit line, which on the posters is usually set in the lower margin and is the quickest way to place the sheet. And the purchase paperwork, which for this name does more work than for almost any other. ## Market at LLB Auction | Figure | Value | |---|---| | Sell-through | 100% | | Record hammer | €5,700 (LOT 28. Deux nus assis) | | Hammer vs low estimate | 2.06x | | Lots above high estimate | 2 | ### Prices by medium | Medium | Offered | Sold | Lowest hammer | Median hammer | Highest hammer | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | Print | 2 | 2 | €1,027 | €1,500 | €1,500 | | Etching | 1 | 1 | €5,700 | €5,700 | €5,700 | ### Year by year | Year | Offered | Sold | Total hammer | |---|---|---|---| | 2025 | 2 | 2 | €6,727 | | 2026 | 1 | 1 | €1,500 | ## Public auction records Results published by other auction houses, cited from the linked sources. Not results of LLB Auction. | House | Date | Work | Price (basis) | Source | |---|---|---|---|---| | Phillips | 22 October 2024 | Minotaure caressant une dormeuse, plate 93 from La Suite Vollard (Bl. 201, Ba. 369) (1933) | US$63,500 (premium) | https://www.phillips.com/detail/pablo-picasso/NY030624/6 | | Bonhams | 14 July 2015 | Femme au Fauteuil No.4 (Bloch 588; Mourlot 137) (1949), signed and numbered 37/50 | £47,500 (premium) | https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/22803/lot/54/ | | Bonhams | 26 September 2024 | Côte D'Azur (Czwiklitzer 177) (1962), after Picasso, from the edition of 15,000 | £1,280 (premium) | https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/29911/lot/69/ | | Bonhams | 26 June 2025 | La Danse des Faunes (Bloch 830, Mourlot 291) (1957), stamped signature, from the edition of 1,000 | US$896 (premium) | https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/30850/lot/142/ | ## Career ### Cautions - A large part of what circulates under this name is catalogued as after Picasso, meaning a reproductive poster or lithograph made from one of his designs, often by another hand. The Côte d'Azur poster of 1962 was issued in an edition of 15,000, was drawn for the stone with Henri Deschamps, and made GBP 1,280 at Bonhams in September 2024. (https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/29911/lot/69/) - A stamped signature is not a signature. La Danse des Faunes of 1957 exists in a signed and numbered edition of 200 and in an edition of 1,000 carrying only the artist's stamped signature; an impression of the latter made USD 896 at Bonhams in Los Angeles in June 2025. (https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/30850/lot/142/) - For the intaglio work the impression itself is priced, not just the image. A fine early impression with rich burr on Montval laid paper watermarked Vollard is a different object from a late, flat one of the same plate. (https://www.phillips.com/detail/pablo-picasso/NY030624/6) - The Suite Vollard was printed in an edition of 260 with a further 50 on wider margins, and the impressions were published by Ambroise Vollard only in 1939, years after the plates were made. Date the impression, not the drawing. (https://www.phillips.com/detail/pablo-picasso/NY030624/6) - No body reviews works under this name for sellers, so the catalogue reference, the paper, the signature and the purchase history are the whole of the evidence a consignor can offer. (https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/22803/lot/54/) - Everything LLB Auction has offered under this name has been on paper. Prices reported for Picasso paintings, drawings and Madoura ceramics are no guide to what a print or a poster is worth. (https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/29911/lot/69/) ### Exhibitions | Exhibition | Venue | Year | |---|---|---| | Picasso: Forty Years of His Art | Museum of Modern Art, New York | 1939 | | Pablo Picasso: A Retrospective | Museum of Modern Art, New York | 1980 | ### Catalogue raisonné - Georges Bloch, Pablo Picasso: Catalogue de l'oeuvre gravé et lithographié - Brigitte Baer, Picasso peintre graveur - Fernand Mourlot, Picasso lithographe - Christophe Czwiklitzer, Les affiches de Pablo Picasso ## Comparables Comparable price band (middle half of hammer prices here): €1,027 to €5,700 Related artists: Francis Bacon, Louise Bourgeois, Salvador Dalí, Angeles Agrela, Alberto Giacometti ## Sources - LLB Auction catalogue (Proprietary) - Wikipedia contributors, Pablo Picasso, CC BY-SA 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso - Wikidata contributors (CC0): https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5593 - Phillips Auctioneers (all rights reserved, cited under quotation): https://www.phillips.com/detail/pablo-picasso/NY030624/6 - Bonhams (all rights reserved, cited under quotation): https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/29911/lot/69/ - Anonymous photographer, 1908, public domain via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portrait_de_Picasso,_1908_(background_retouched).jpg - Anonymous photographer, 1908, public domain via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain): https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a7/Portrait_de_Picasso%2C_1908_%28background_retouched%29.jpg/330px-Portrait_de_Picasso%2C_1908_%28background_retouched%29.jpg ## Valuations Request a free valuation: https://www.llb-auction.com/sell