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.

US warplanes carried out a strike on an Iran-linked weapons storage facility in eastern Syria on Wednesday in response to attacks against American personnel, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said.

It is the second time in roughly two weeks that the United States has targeted a location in Syria it said was tied to Iran, which supports an array of groups that Washington blames for a spike in attacks on its forces in the Middle East.

The United States is striving to deter Iran and its proxies from turning the Israel-Hamas fighting into a regional war, but the repeated attacks and strikes in response risk a conflict between Washington and Tehran.

“US military forces conducted a self-defense strike on a facility in eastern Syria used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and affiliated groups. This strike was conducted by two US F-15s against a weapons storage facility,” Austin said in a statement.

“This precision self-defense strike is a response to a series of attacks against US personnel in Iraq and Syria by IRGC-Quds Force affiliates,” Austin said, adding that the United States “is fully prepared to take further necessary measures to protect our people and our facilities.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said the Wednesday strike killed nine people affiliated with Iran-backed groups in Syria — a toll that could not be independently confirmed.

The US military also hit two facilities in Syria on October 26 that it said were used by the IRGC and affiliated groups, and assessed that those strikes did not cause casualties.

Like the most recent strike, Washington said the earlier two were in response to attacks on US personnel, who have been targeted more than 40 times with rockets and drones since October 17.

– MQ-9 drone shot down –
The surge in attacks on US troops is linked to the war between Israel and Hamas, which began when the militant group carried out a shock cross-border attack from Gaza on October 7 that Israeli officials say killed more than 1,400 people.

Israel’s military responded with a relentless air, land and naval assault on Gaza that the territory’s health ministry said has left more than 10,500 people dead.

There are roughly 2,500 American troops in Iraq and some 900 in Syria as part of efforts to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State group.

The jihadists once held significant territory in both countries but were pushed back by local ground forces supported by international air strikes in a bloody multi-year conflict.

In another incident linked to the Israel-Hamas war, the Huthis — who seized Yemen’s capital Sanaa in 2014 and control large swathes of the country — said Wednesday that they shot down an American drone.

“Our air defenses were able to down an American MQ-9 while it was carrying out hostile surveillance and espionage activities in Yemeni territorial waters as part of American military support” for Israel, the rebels said in a statement.

A senior defense official from the United States — which rushed military support to Israel and also bolstered American forces in the region after the October 7 attack — confirmed that one of the country’s drones was downed.

The Huthis are opposed to government forces in Yemen and are also part of the “axis of resistance” of groups arrayed against Israel.

They have claimed responsibility for multiple drone and missile attacks against Israel during its war with Hamas, and the US Navy intercepted missiles fired by the rebels last month.

A series of MQ-9 drones — which can fly more than 1,100 miles (1,700 kilometers) at altitudes of up to 50,000 feet (15,000 meters) and can be used for both surveillance and strikes — have been lost or damaged in recent years, including one the United States assessed was downed by the Huthis in 2019.

 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.