Ari Hodara, a 59-year-old sales engineer from Paris, is walking away with Pablo Picasso’s “Tête de Femme (Head of a Woman),” valued at approximately $1 million, just days after purchasing a $117 raffle ticket.
That number is correct. The raffle ticket price was $117.
The 1941 painting is a portrait of Picasso’s longtime partner, Dora Maar.
According to The Associated Press, Hodara apparently heard about the charity raffle by chance while eating at a restaurant. When he found out he won, he thought it was a hoax.
While raffle tickets were sold internationally, organizers and the Picasso Foundation were pleased the winner is a Paris resident, making the painting’s delivery quite easy.
Where do the proceeds go?
This was the third edition of this specific charity raffle known as the “1 Picasso 100 Euros” nonprofit raffle.
The tradition started in 2013, with a 25-year-old in Pennsylvania winning Picasso’s “The Man in the Opera Hat.”
In the following raffle seven years later, fortune found Claudia Borgogno.
The Italian winner secured Picasso’s 1921 oil-on-canvas, “Still Life,” using a raffle ticket her son had bought her as a Christmas present.
According to The Associated Press, the two previous raffles raised more than 10 million euros for cultural work in Lebanon and water and hygiene programs in Africa.
At this year’s raffle, 120,000 tickets were sold, adding up to $14 million in profit, or 12 million euros.
One million euros will be recouped by the Opera Gallery, which provided Picasso’s “Head of a Woman” at a significant markdown from its 1.45 million euro valuation.
The remaining proceeds — roughly 11 million euros — are destined for the Paris-based Alzheimer Research Foundation to fund critical medical studies in France, as reported by Reuters.