Magnet / Picasso / Le Rêve / The Dream / 54 x 79 mm

Le Rêve (The Dream) is a 1932 oil painting (130 × 97 cm) by the then 50-year-old Pablo Picasso, depicting his 24-year-old lover Marie-Thérèse Walter. It is said to have been painted in one afternoon, January 24, 1932. It belongs to Picasso's period of distorted representations, reminiscent of early Fauvism with their simplified outlines and contrasting colors.

The erotic content of the painting was repeatedly emphasized. Critics have pointed out that Picasso painted an erect penis, presumably symbolizing his own, on the upturned face of his model.

Le Rêve was purchased in 1941 for $7,000 by Victor and Sally Ganz of New York City. With this purchase began her 50-year collection of works by just five artists: Picasso, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella and Eva Hesse. After the deaths of the whole (Victor 1987 and Sally 1997), their collection, including Le Rêve, was sold at Christie's auction house on November 11, 1997. Le Rêve fetched an unexpectedly high price of $48.4 million and was the sixth most expensive painting sold at the time (tenth when accounting for inflation). The entire collection set a record for a private collection sale at $206.5 million. The total amount they paid for these works over the course of their collecting lives was around $2 million.

Magnet based on the painting Le Rêve, 1932