An art lover in Paris wins a Picasso painting worth one million euros in a charity draw worth 100 euros | France

A Picasso painting worth more than €1 million (£870,000) has been won in a lottery by a software engineer from Paris who thought the whole thing might be a hoax.

Ari Hodara learned he was the winner of the drawing on Tuesday when he answered a video call from Christie’s auction house in Paris. “How can I be sure it’s not a hoax?” asked the 58-year-old when he was told he was the new owner of the Spanish artist’s 1941 work.

Hodara described himself as an art enthusiast fond of Picasso, and said he bought the ticket for 100 euros over the weekend after learning of the charity raffle by chance while having a meal at a restaurant.

He said: “First, I will tell my wife the news, who has not yet returned from work.” “At first I think I will make use of it and keep it.”

The third edition of the “1 Picasso for €100” lottery, which aids Alzheimer’s research, featured Picasso’s “Head of a Woman,” a portrait of the artist’s muse and partner Dora Maar, painted in 1941.

Organizers said all 120,000 tickets had been sold, with a net value of €12m (£10.4m), of which €1m would be paid to the Opera Gallery, an international art agency that owns the painting. Gilles Dayan, founder of the gallery, said he had offered a preferential price for the painting, with the general price reaching 1.45 million euros.

Picasso’s grandson, Olivier, previously told The Guardian that the project was a natural continuation of the artist’s legacy.

“My grandfather was very generous, but he was also reserved,” he said. He helped his family, especially my grandmother Marie-Thérèse [Walter]. Friends helped. He helped those in need during the Civil War in Spain, during World War II and even afterward in the 1950s and 1960s.

“For me, this project is a completely logical and legitimate part of his legacy. I hope that in the future I will be able to do this every year if possible.”

The raffle was the brainchild of Perry Cochin, a French television producer, host and owner of the tableware company Waww La Table. “I thought, wouldn’t it be great to do a global raffle, by selling tickets online? I decided it had to be a piece of art, and what’s the most famous name in art? Obviously it’s Picasso,” she said.

Olivier Picasso said Tête de femme was a “very interesting” work painted in the same Left Bank studio in Paris as his grandfather’s 1937 masterpiece Guernica. “This period was important for my grandfather, because he was at the end of the divorce proceedings from his first wife, Olga Khokhlova, a divorce that never happened because Franco abolished the divorce law.” [in 1939]Although I met my grandmother and Dora Maar.

“The period was also very complicated due to the Nazi occupation of Paris. Thus the colors are darker than usual, with brown, black and grey. While it is a beautiful depiction of women, there is still a Picasso vibe. My grandfather kept the painting as a memento of this moment.

In the first drawing, in 2013, a Pennsylvania man who worked for a fire sprinkler company won a man wearing an opera hat, painted by Picasso in 1914 during the Cubist period.

In 2020, the still life oil on canvas went to Claudia Borgogno, an accountant in Italy for whom her son had bought the ticket as a Christmas present.

The two previous Picasso draws have raised a total of more than €10 million for cultural work in Lebanon and water and hygiene programs in Africa.