A Parisian art enthusiast could hardly believe his luck after winning a Pablo Picasso painting worth about $1 million with a $117 raffle ticket.
“How do I check that it’s not a hoax?” said Ari Hodara, 58, after organizers called him following the draw at Christie’s auction house in the French capital.
Hodara, a sales engineer who describes himself as an art amateur fond of Picasso, said he bought the ticket over the weekend after learning about the charity raffle by chance during a restaurant meal.
“First, I will tell the news to my wife, who has yet to return from work,” he said. “And at first, I think I’ll take advantage of it and keep it.”
The prize was Picasso’s Head of a Woman, a 1941 gouache-on-paper portrait of his longtime muse and partner Dora Maar, featured in the third edition of the “1 Picasso for 100 euros” lottery.
Organizers said all 120,000 tickets were sold worldwide, raising 12 million euros ($14 million). Of that, 1 million euros will go to the Opera Gallery, which owned the painting.
Gallery founder Gilles Dyan said the work was offered at a preferential price, below its public valuation of 1.45 million euros.
The charity raffle, run by the Alzheimer Research Foundation, supports Alzheimer’s research and is based in a major Paris hospital. It has become France’s leading private funder of Alzheimer-related medical research since its founding in 2004.
Previous editions of the raffle have raised millions for cultural and humanitarian causes, including programs in Lebanon and Africa.