Picasso's work "tomato plant" to be auctioned.

Picture “Tomato plant” It will be auctioned in London 11 million euros.

The work of Pablo Picasso, “Tomato plant” (1944), created days before the liberation of Paris by Allied forces in World War II, It will be auctioned 1 March by Sotheby's in London and is expected to reach its price 10 o 15 million pounds (of 11,7 to 17 million euros).

The series of five paintings, considered a symbol of resistance and victory in Europe, He has remained in the hands of a private collector for four decades since it was sold at Sotheby's in New York in 1976.

Now this work will be sold at an auction devoted to Impressionist and Modern Art in the British capital.

“This exceptional work of Pablo Ruiz Picasso painted at a time of particular tension during the war: the liberation of Paris”, Samuel Valette he reported, specialist in Impressionist and modern art at Sotheby's.

According to the expert he added, “It is imbued with a sense of renewed energy and hope that distinguishes it from other still lifes of the period of wars, who they were imbued with a more somber and dark feeling”.

Picasso's work “shows that there was light at end of tunnel”, pointed.

In the summer of 1944, the painter was staying with his then-lover, the modelo Marie-Thérèse Walter, Boulevard Henri IV in, weeks before the liberation of Paris from the Nazis by Allied forces.

Picasso began to observe the evolution of a tomato plant growing on the windowsills apartment, at a time when there was a shortage of food available in Europe.

Seeing the resistance of the plant as a sign of hope, Picasso painted five canvases of it on a window, between 3 and the 12 August 1944, with variations in their level of abstraction.