An original painting by Pablo Picasso valued at a cool €1 million ($1,113,735) could be yours for just €100.
The Paris-based non-profit Aider les Autres (translated from French as “Help the Others”) is hosting an international raffle, dubbed “1 Picasso for 100 Euros,” in which members of the public can purchase a €100 (roughly $111) ticket in hopes of acquiring a still-life by the Spanish master. Those playing their luck have a 1-in-200,000 chance of winning the coveted work.
The 1921 painting, titled Nature Morte, is an oil-on-canvas depiction of a newspaper alongside a glass of absinthe. The date and style are reflective of a period in the artist’s career categorized as “Crystal” or “Synthetic” Cubism, defined by Tate Modern as a movement “about flattening out the image and sweeping away the last traces of allusion to three-dimensional space.”
Picasso’s Nature Morte pictured behind his first wife, Olga Khokhlova, in Paris between 1923-24.
(Anonyme, Olga Picasso dans le salon du 23 rue la Boétie, Paris 1923-1924. Négatif. 6,9 x 12,1 cm @Archives Olga Ruiz-Picasso. Fundacion Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte, Madrid. Photographe inconnu, tous droits réservés.)
Currently on view at the Picasso Museum in Paris, Nature Morte is signed and dated by the artist and is supported by two certificates of authenticity, respectively signed by two of his children, Maya Widmaier-Picasso and Claude Ruiz-Picasso. At the moment, it belongs to collector David Nahmad—arguably considered to be the owner of the largest collection of Picasso works in the world—from whom Aider les Austres will purchase the work for the raffle.
The organization says the cost of the acquisition will be recovered through ticket sales, with the remainder of the raised funds going towards CARE International for the rehabilitation of schools and supplies of clean water in Cameroun, Madagascar, and Morocco.
This isn’t the first time the non-profit has run a lottery-style Picasso giveaway. They staged the first iteration of the project in 2013. That year’s winner was Jeffrey Gonano, a 25-year-old American fire-safety official from Pennsylvania. He now owns Picasso’s L’Homme au Gibus, a 1914 gouache-on-paper drawing. At the time of the raffle in 2013, the estimated worth of the drawing was also $1 million.
This edition’s drawing will take place on January 6, 2020 in Paris, under the supervision of a court officer. Aider les Autres now plans on continuing their quirky fundraising concept on an annual basis, with the proceeds going towards a different non-profit organization each year.
If you’re feeling lucky, tickets can be purchased here.