Steve Wynn
Who owned Le Rêve (Picasso) from 2001 to 2013?
Le Rêve ( Picasso ) Le Rêve ( English : The Dream ) is a 1932 oil on canvas painting ( 130 × 97 cm ) by Pablo Picasso , then 50 years old , portraying his 22-year-old mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter . It is said to have been painted in one afternoon , on 24 January 1932 . It belongs to Picassos period of distorted depictions , with its oversimplified outlines and contrasted colors resembling early cubism . 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 . On 26 March 2013 , the painting was sold in a private sale for $155 million , making it one of the most expensive paintings ever sold . Provenance . Le Rêve was purchased for $7,000 in 1941 by Victor and Sally Ganz of New York City . This purchase began their 50-year collection of works by just five artists : Picasso , Jasper Johns , Robert Rauschenberg , Frank Stella , and Eva Hesse . After the Ganzes died ( Victor in 1987 and Sally in 1997 ) , their collection , including Le Rêve , was sold at Christies 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 fourth 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 Christies in 1997 appears to have been the Austrian-born investment fund manager Wolfgang Flöttl , who also briefly held Van Goghs Portrait of Dr . Gachet in possession in the late 1990s . In 2001 , under financial pressure , he sold Le Rêve to casino magnate Steve Wynn for an undisclosed sum , estimated to be about $60 million . On March 26 , 2013 , the New York Post reported that Steven A . Cohen of SAC Capital had bought the painting from Wynn for $155 million . Wynn incident . In 2006 , the painting was the centerpiece of Wynn’s collection and he had considered naming his Wynn Las Vegas resort after it . During a period of anti-French sentiment in the United States in response to Frances opposition to the United States proposed invasion of Iraq , Wynn decided it was inadvisable to give the resort a French name . In October 2006 , Wynn told a group of his friends ( including the screenwriter Nora Ephron and her husband Nick Pileggi , the broadcaster Barbara Walters , the art dealer Serge Sorokko and his wife , the model Tatiana Sorokko and the lawyer David Boies and his wife , Mary ) that he had agreed the day before to sell Le Rêve for $139 million to Steven A . Cohen . 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 right elbow through the canvas , puncturing 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 , which affects his peripheral vision . Later , Wynn said that he took the event as a sign to not sell the painting . After a $90,000 repair , the painting was re-valued at $85 million . Wynn filled a claim to recover the $54 million perceived loss from his Lloyds of London insurers , an amount which would have covered most of the initial cost of buying the painting . When the insurers balked , Wynn sued them in January 2007 . The case was eventually settled out of court in March 2007 . Cohen bought the painting from Wynn in 2013 for $155 million ( ca . $134 million in 2006 dollars ) . Ignoring inflation , the price was estimated to be the highest ever paid for an artwork by a U.S . collector until Kenneth C . Griffins ~$300 million purchase of Willem de Koonings Interchange in September 2015 .