$1m Picasso artwork snapped up at charity raffle for just €100

A $1m drawing by Pablo Picasso was snapped up by a 25-year-old US art lover at an online charity raffle for a mere €100.

Jeffrey Gonano said he had been looking for a picture to hang on his living room wall when he read about ‘L’Homme au Gibus’ (Man with Opera Hat), raffled by Sotheby’s in Paris. “I was looking for art and I thought I might as well,” he said.

Despite the enormous value of his new acquisition, Gonano vowed not to sell the artwork, at least for the time being.

His winning ticket 747815 — picked by a computer system this week — was one of 50,000 put up for sale online at €100 each to raise funds for an association working to preserve the ancient city of Tyre in Lebanon.

The small drawing dates from 1914, during the artist’s Cubist phase, and was purchased by the Association to Save Tyre from a New York gallery with the help of a large bank loan.

Organisers say they paid slightly less for the work than the $1m estimate given by Sotheby’s experts.