November 22, 1907

"Dora Maar" (November 22, 1907 to July 16, 1997), was a pseudonym but the name survived for Picasso's model and lover. She was also herself an artist. They were both at the center of 20th century history, as in these details about one of his portraits of Maar: "Femme assise, robe bleue", which was painted on Picasso's birthday, October 25, 1939.

"'Femme assise, robe bleue' comes to the market at a time [2017] when the demand for Picasso’s portraits of Dora Maar is at an all-time high. As Francis Outred, Chairman and Head of Post-War and Contemporary Art, explains, the picture also ‘holds within it an incredible story’.

"The painting originally belonged to Picasso’s dealer, Paul Rosenberg, but was confiscated in 1940 soon after its creation. It was meant to be transported to Germany but was intercepted and captured by the Free French Forces — an event immortalised, albeit in fictional form, in the 1964 movie 'The Train', starring Burt Lancaster and Jeanne Moreau.

"In real life, one of the people who helped to sabotage the Nazis’ attempt to remove countless artworks from France towards the end of the war was in fact Alexandre Rosenberg, the son of Paul Rosenberg. He had enlisted with the Free French Forces after the invasion of France in 1940, and was a lieutenant in the Second Armoured Division when he led the platoon of nine men who stopped the train....."

Of course on a minor key, Maar and Picasso were both cat lovers. Somewhere it is noted that
"Picasso once likened Maar’s allure and temperament to that of an 'Afghan cat'."