Though Epstein did not refer to the painting by its name, he was talking about Salvator Mundi, the most expensive artwork ever sold publicly at auction. In 2017, the painting sold for $450.3 million at a Christie's auction. Its attribution, however, has come into doubt since then. The painting's buyer was reportedly Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan al-Saud, a Saudi prince who was little known at the time.
An auctioneer is like a plastic surgeon. You have to trust them," she says. "So I trust you." She entrusts her piece to André Masson (played by the actor Alex Lutz)-a character named for the French Surrealist painter-who explains to his new assistant: "The fantastic part of the job is turning up a real rarity. You're Indiana Jones. But 99% of the time is soliciting. Like a whore.
The work, Bust of a Woman in a Flowery Hat (Dora Maar), was finished towards the end of the couple's turbulent nine-year relationship and shows Maar in a softer, more colourful light than Picasso's previous portraits of his then lover. Picasso made many paintings of Maar, including the famous, Portrait of Dora Maar and Dora Maar au Chat, but she said of them: All of his portraits of me are lies. They're all Picassos. Not one is Dora Maar.