Pablo Picasso painted so many pictures of his muse Marie-Thérèse Walter wearing a beret that art historians struggle to tell one from another by title alone. So the decision by a restaurateur and property tycoon to rename his Picasso painting “Annabel” after his nightclub might have been seen as a helpful one.
However, Richard Caring, who owns Annabel’s in Mayfair, central London, has been criticised by art historians for presenting the painting in a “fake context”. Mr Caring, who also owns Le Caprice and The Ivy, is rumoured to have paid between £20 million and £30 million for The Girl with a Red Beret and Pompom last year.
The work is part of a series of portraits carried out by the artist in December 1937.