Picasso portrait of muse on auction in Paris

PARIS -- A vividly hued Picasso portrait of longtime muse and partner Dora Maar that had remained out of view for more than eight decades is being auctioned Friday in Paris. Painted in July 1943, “Bust of a Woman with a Flowered Hat (Dora Maar)” depicts Maar in a brightly colored floral hat. Maar, an artist and photographer herself, had been Picasso's partner and muse for about seven years, and the relationship was coming to a painful close. The work was purchased in 1944 and had not been on the market since, remaining in the family collection. The painting is being auctioned at the Drouot auction house, which called the reappearance of the work, part of Picasso’s “Woman in a Hat” series, "a moment of rare significance, revealing for the first time the full radiance of a work long kept sec