A raffle ticket costing EUR 100 (US $135) is a small price to pay if the prize is a Picasso work worth US $1 million.
That’s exactly what is up for grabs for one lucky raffle entrant in the latest Sotheby’s charity tombola, which will be announced just in time for Christmas on December 18 at Sotheby’s in Paris.
Picasso’s Man in the Opera Hat, completed in 1914, was donated by an anonymous New York collector and will raise money for a charity working to save the UNESCO World Heritage city of Tyre in southern Lebanon.
"It's something that normally you find in a museum … it’s beautiful and perfectly executed,” Olivier Picasso, the artist’s grandson, told USA Today.
"Buy a ticket and enjoy a double pleasure. The first one will be to help a really interesting project and the second one is, hey, maybe to get a Picasso on your wall,” he said, when talking to AFP.
The Cubist painting is said to be of museum standard and is the first artwork of its calibre to be sold at raffle, according to the International Association to Save Tyre.
If you’re feeling lucky, you can by one of the 50,000 tickets up for grabs via the raffle’s dedicated website.
If all tickets are sold, the raffle will raise about US $7 million; money that will be used to set up a traditional handicraft village in Tyre and an institute for Phoenician studies in Beirut.