Le Rêve (The Dream in French) (1932) is an abstract painting by Pablo Picasso portraying his mistress, Marie-Therese Walters.
The painting was damaged in October 2006 when its owner, casino magnate Steve Wynn, accidentally put his elbow through the canvas of the painting, creating a 6-inch tear. He was showing the painting, which was hanging in his Las Vegas office, to Nora Ephron and several others. Steve Wynn suffers from a genetic eye disease, retinitis pigmentosa, which severely constricts his peripheral vision. Before the incident, Wynn had agreed to sell Le Rêve for $139 million to Steven A. Cohen, thus making it the most expensive sale of all time. Wynn later took the fateful event as a sign not to sell the painting. Immediately after the accident, Wynn asked those present to refrain from discussing what happened; he wanted time to contact the potential buyer and find out if and how the painting could be repaired. The secret was kept for 9 days, until the story showed up in the Page Six column of The New York Post. Nora says she kept the secret and is very proud of herself, as discussed on her blog (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nora-ephron/my-weekend-in-vegas_b_31800.html). --PamFromMD 23:15, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[1]
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NEW YORK, Jan 11 (Reuters) - U.S. casino developer Steve Wynn sued Lloyd's of London on Thursday, saying the insurer failed to pay off a $54 million claim for the depreciated value of a Picasso painting he mistakenly poked a hole in.
Wynn's suit, filed in Manhattan federal court, sought an order for Lloyd's to provide him a copy of its appraisal report, including a post-restoration value of the 75-year-old painting, "Le Reve" (The Dream).
Late last year, Wynn damaged the painting with his elbow, putting a "grapefruit-sized hole in the left arm" of the painting's subject, Marie-Therese Walters, a mistress of Picasso.
Wynn had just finalized a $139 million sale of the painting -- for which he paid $48.4 million in 1998 -- to another collector, but decided to release the buyer from the sale agreement and to repair and keep the painting for himself.
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A phone message left for a Lloyd's spokesman was not returned.
Barry Slotnick, Wynn's lawyer, said Wynn notified Lloyd's after the accident, telling them he believed the post-restoration market value of the painting was $85 million. The amount Wynn is seeking in the suit represents the difference between what he says is the painting's market value before and after the damage.
"We need them to respond and have them give us their appraisal and they haven't done that," Slotnick said.
Wynn had been showing the painting to screenwriter Nora Ephron, writer Nicholas Pileggi, television personality Barbara Walters and two art dealers when the accident happened.
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