Garçon à la Pipe (Boy with a pipe) is a painting by Pablo Picasso, painted in 1905, during the 24 year old artist's Rose Period, soon after settling in Montmartre, France. The oil on canvas painting, measuring 100 × 81.3 cm (slightly over 39 × 32 inches), depicts a Parisian boy holding a pipe in his left hand. On May 4, 2004, it fetched $104.1 million USD at an auction in Sotheby's in New York, after having been given a pre-sale estimate of $70 million by the auction house. The two-dimensional work of art depicted in this image is in the public domain in the United States. ... A young Pablo Picasso Pablo Picasso, formally Pablo Ruiz Picasso, (October 25, 1881 – April 8, 1973) was one of the recognized masters of 20th century art. ... 1905 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Montmartre is a hill in the north of Paris, France, in the 18th arrondissement, a part of the Right Bank. The name Montmartre comes from Mont des Martyrs because the bishop Saint Denis (patron saint of France), the priest Rustique, and the archdeacon Eleuthere were all decapitated there around the... The French Republic or France (French: République française or France) is a country whose metropolitan territory is located in western Europe, and which is further made up of a collection of overseas islands and territories located in other continents. ... CM or cm may stand for: Cameroon (ISO country code) centimetre (cm) Championship Manager - an association football computer game circular mil - a USA unit for the cross-sectional area of electrical wires (always CM, in capitals) Computer Modern - the standard font set that ships with the TeX computer typesetting system... Mid-19th century tool for converting between different standards of the inch An inch is an Imperial unit of length. ... The Eiffel Tower has become the symbol of Paris throughout the world. ... May 4 is the 124th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (125th in leap years). ... 2004 is a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States. ... An auctioneer and her assistants scan the crowd for bidders An auction is the process of buying and selling things by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder. ... Sothebys is a noted auction house. ... State nickname: Empire State Other U.S. States Capital Albany Largest city New York Governor George Pataki Official languages None Area 141,205 km² (27th)  - Land 122,409 km²  - Water 18,795 km² (13. ...

Many art critics have stated that the painting's high sale price has much more to do with the artist's name than with the merit or historical import of the painting. The Washington Post's article [1] (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7147-2004May6.html) on the sale contained the following characterisation of the reaction:

Picasso expert Pepe Karmel, reached in New York the morning after the sale, was waxing wroth about the whole affair. "I'm stunned," he said, "that a pleasant, minor painting could command a price appropriate to a real masterwork by Picasso. This just shows how much the marketplace is divorced from the true values of art."

The article goes on to argue that the picture, while aesthetically pleasing, is not of the Cubist style that Picasso largely invented and to which he owes his exalted place in the art world. Most of the world's most famous paintings are now owned by museums, and once acquired are almost always kept indefinitely. They are therefore literally priceless, but if such works (for instance, the iconic Mona Lisa) were put on the open market, it is safe to assume that they would reach far higher values. ... The Mona Lisa (Italian, Spanish: La Gioconda; French: La Joconde), less commonly rendered as the Monna Lisa, is an oil painting on poplar wood by the famous Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci. ...

External links

• Scotsman.com News - Picasso masterpiece makes record $104.1 million at auction (http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=514672004)
• On-Line Picasso Project (http://www.tamu.edu/mocl/picasso/works/1905/opp05-01.html)
• Painting (http://www.skfriends.com/Boy%20With%20a%20Pipe-painting-by-picasso-812x1000.jpg)