An Italian accountant won a $1.1-million Picasso in a charity raffle.
Pablo Picasso, Nature Morte, 1921. © Succession Picasso.
An Italian woman won Pablo Picasso’s 1921 painting Nature Morte—valued at €1 million ($1.1 million)—in a charity raffle yesterday. Claudia Borgogno, a 58-year-old accountant, received the raffle ticket for the draw as a Christmas gift from her son, Lorenzo Naso. Borgogno told the AP that the experience was “incredible.” Naso shared that his mother was amazed by the news, telling the AP: “When I arrived and I told her she has won she was like, ‘Please don’t joke.’”
The raffle ticket was selected from an electronic draw at Christie’s in Paris. Though the raffle organizers valued the painting €1 million, art collector David Nahmad, who provided the artwork, claims that it is worth more than two times that amount. The small still life painting depicts a newspaper sitting next to a glass of absinthe atop a wooden table. Tickets for the raffle were sold for €100 ($109) each in more than 100 countries, with proceeds going to supply water to villages in Madagascar and Cameroon.
