19 Dec 2013

Lucky day for Picasso winner

9:36 pm on 19 December 2013

An American ticket-holder in a worldwide online charity raffle has walked away with a Picasso, worth $US1 million after paying a mere €100.

Olivier Picasso with his grandfather's painting.

Olivier Picasso with his grandfather's painting. Photo: AFP

The perfectly preserved Cubist artwork had been bought by an anonymous donor from a New York gallery and given to a charity working to save the ancient city of Tyre in southern Lebanon.

The UNESCO-registered charity issued 50,000 tickets at €100 each for the tombola at Sotheby's in Paris, hoping to raise $US5 million, AFP reports.

The lucky winner was 25-year-old Jeffrey Gonano from Pennsylvania, who works for a fire protection company.

The charity wants the money to develop a traditional handicraft village giving young people, women and the disabled jobs in Tyre and to set up an institute for Phoenician studies in Beirut.

Olivier Picasso, the Spanish artist's grandson, was among those drumming up interest in the tickets.

Picasso's masterpieces are some of the most expensive in the world.