PARIS (AP) 鈥� A Parisian art enthusiast could not believe his luck when he found out Tuesday he’d won a Pablo Picasso painting worth $1 million with a $117 raffle ticket.
鈥淗ow do I check that it鈥檚 not a hoax?鈥� said Ari Hodara, 58, after organizers called him following the draw at Christie鈥檚 auction house in the French capital.
Hodara described himself as an art amateur fond of Picasso and said he bought his ticket over the weekend after finding out about the charity raffle by chance during a meal in a restaurant.
鈥淔irst, I will tell the news to my wife, who has yet to return from work,鈥� said Hodara, a sales engineer. 鈥淎nd at first, I think I鈥檒l take advantage of it and keep it.鈥�
The third iteration of the 鈥�1 Picasso for 100 euros鈥� lottery was for Picasso鈥檚 鈥淗ead of a Woman,鈥� a portrait of Picasso鈥檚 longtime muse and partner Dora Maar. The gouache-on-paper was painted by the artist in 1941.
The online draw offered the chance to win a $1 million portrait by the Spanish artist in aid of research.
Organizers said all 120,000 tickets were sold worldwide, netting 12 million euros ($14 million). Of that, 1 million euros will be paid to the Opera Gallery, an international art dealership that owned the painting.
Gilles Dyan, the gallery founder, said he offered a preferential price for the painting, with the public price at 1.45 million euros.
The first raffle saw win 鈥淢an in the Opera Hat,鈥� which the Spanish master painted in 1914 during his Cubist period.
The oil-on-canvas 鈥淪till Life鈥� was raffled off in 2020 and won by Claudia Borgogno, an accountant in Italy whose son as a Christmas present.
Painted in 1921, that painting was purchased for the raffle from billionaire art collector David Nahmad, who argued in that Picasso would have approved of his work being raffled. Picasso .
The Alzheimer Research Foundation, the charity raffle鈥檚 organizer, is based in one of Paris鈥� leading public hospitals and says it has become France鈥檚 leading private financier of Alzheimer-related medical research since its founding in 2004.
Organizers said the two previous Picasso raffles raised a total of more than 10 million euros for cultural work in Lebanon and water and hygiene programs in Africa.
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