Pablo Picasso's painting "Buste de femme" (Bust of a Woman), which he created two years before his death in 1971, sold at auction in the German city of Cologne on Monday for €3.4 million ($3.64 milllion).
The bid was above expectations, a spokeswoman for the Van Ham auction house said on Monday evening.
A telephone bidder from Switzerland submitted the highest bid.
It was the first time in at least 25 years that a major painting by the Spanish artist was auctioned in Germany, according to Van Ham.
Art historians recognized in the painting Picasso's second wife, Jacqueline Roque (1927-86), from whose estate it originally came.
It came from a German private collection with an estimated total value of €10 million. It also includes works by Louise Bourgeois, Paul Klee, Sigmar Polke, Egon Schiele and Kurt Schwitters.
Picasso, who died 50 years ago, created a total of 400 portraits of Roque, who was 46 years his junior.
The former ceramics saleswoman later forbade his children to attend Picasso's funeral service. She died in 1986.
