One of Pablo Picasso’s masterpieces, “Woman with a Watch,” was sold at auction Wednesday night for $139.3 million by Sotheby’s in New York, the second-highest price ever achieved for the artist.

The 1932 painting depicts one of the Spanish artist’s companions and muses, the French painter Marie-Therese Walter, and had been valued at over $120 million before going on the block, according to Sotheby’s.

The painting is part of Sotheby’s special sale this week of the collection of the wealthy New York patron of the arts Emily Fisher Landau, who died this year at the age of 102.

Julian Dawes, the house’s head of impressionist and modern art, called the Picasso canvas “a masterpiece by every measure.”

“Painted in 1932 — Picasso’s ‘annus mirabilis’ — it is full of joyful, passionate abandon yet at the same time it is utterly considered and resolved,” he said.

Walter was considered Picasso’s “golden muse”, and features in another of his works going under the hammer on Thursday at Christie’s: “Femme endormie,” or “Sleeping Woman”, estimated to sell for $25-$35 million.

Walter met Picasso in Paris in 1927, when the Spaniard was still married to Russian-Ukrainian ballet dancer Olga Khokhlova, and when Walter was 17.

She also featured in “Femme assise pres d’une fenetre (Marie-Therese)”, which was sold in 2021 for $103.4 million by Christie’s auction house.

In 2021, Sotheby’s also sold another Picasso featuring Walter, for $103 million. The couple had a daughter together who died last year.

Fifty years after his death in 1973 aged 91, Picasso remains one of the most influential artists of the modern world, and is often hailed as a dynamic and creative genius.

But in the wake of the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment and assault, his reputation has been tarnished by accusations that he exerted a violent hold over the women who shared his life and inspired his art.

Sotheby’s is hoping to net around $400 million in sales for pieces from Landau’s collection, which also includes works by Jasper Johns, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko and Andy Warhol.

As many as seven students from PSG College of Technology in Coimbatore have been arrested for allegedly ragging and shaving the head of a junior student from the same college, police said.

The police said that the victim is a first-year student.

According to the police, all seven accused students are studying in their second year and were indulged in ragging and demanding money from the victim for liquor.

“FIR has been registered against the seven accused students, and they will be produced in court,” the police added.

Meanwhile, the college management has also suspended all seven students.

Further details are awaited.

 Launching a sharp attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday asked why the former identifies himself as an Other Backward Class (OBC) when PM considers ‘poor’ as the only caste in India.

“PM Modi says in every speech, ‘I am OBC’. But when I talk about the caste census, they say there is no caste in India. There is only one caste in India: ‘Garib’. Modi ji, if ‘poor’ is the only caste in the country, then why do you call yourself OBC?,” Rahul Gandhi said while addressing an election rally in Chhattisgarh’s Ambikapur.

He further went on to say that all promises made by PM Modi, whether it be on black money, demonetization, or previously revoked farm laws, were either false or have never been delivered to the people.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi came here and promised you Rs 15 lakh. Did you receive it? He said demonetisation would wipe out black money. Did it happen? He said farmers will benefit from the Farm Bill. Farmers themselves rejected the bill. You know who speaks the truth and who lies,” he added.

Rahul Gandhi said that all promises he had made to the people of Chhattisgarh, including loan waiver for farmers, during the previous election had been delivered by the Bhupesh Baghel-led Congress government in the state

“I told you in the last elections that the farm loans would be waived off. Write it down; it will be waived off this time. Last time, we said, “Bijli bill half.” This time, the electricity bill for the consumption of up to 200 units will be waived. It means that 40 lakh families in Chhattisgarh will not pay even a penny for electricity. KG to PG–this will be the first state in India where education will be free from KG to PG,” he said.

Voting for the first phase of the Chattisgarh Assembly Elections for 20 seats was held on Tuesday.

Voting in the remaining 70 seats in Chhattisgarh will be held on November 17. The counting of votes will take place on December 3.