France to Get Picasso Works in Lieu of Taxes

France is to receive a huge collection of Pablo Picasso’s works in lieu of death duties on the estate of the late artist’s widow, Jacqueline, the Culture Ministry said today.

The collection includes 49 paintings, 38 drawings, 24 drawing books, two sculptures, 19 ceramics, seven lithographs and 240 prints, according to the ministry.

Jacqueline Picasso, the Spanish painter’s second wife, killed herself with a single bullet to the head in October, 1986, at her country home of Mougins in southeastern France. She was 60.

The ministry statement did not say how much the collection is worth, but art experts estimated it at several million dollars.

“This selection of works by Pablo Picasso represents all the aspects of the creation of this artist during a very long period spanning from 1896 to the last years of his life,” the ministry said.

The collection includes a 1913 collage by Georges Braque, “Tivoli Cinema.”

Picasso married Jacqueline Roque in 1961. At the time, she was a model 44 years his junior.

When Picasso died in 1973 at age 79, Jacqueline was one of his six heirs. She received one-quarter of the artist’s estate in 1977, after years of legal wrangling.

When Jacqueline’s daughter, Catherine Hutin, hands over the art collection in lieu of death duties, part of the works will be allocated to museums in several towns outside Paris and the rest will go on show at the Picasso Museum in the French capital.