Lady Hale says he is the father of modern painting, and there is surely none who consistently gives such pleasure.
Though Ms Wullschlager is fair and never sneering about his painting after he left Russia for ever in 1922, she is firm that his art was never as good again.
The purpose, he says, is to evoke joy through spectacular beauty, a feat he intends to achieve by painting the 410, 000 barrels, producing a three-dimensional mosaic of red and blue and yellow in the desert 100 miles outside Abu Dhabi City.
He is a scholar steeped in the history and theories of 20th-century painting.
He is British diamond jewelry magnate Laurence Graff, who told Bonhams that the painting will be displayed at the Delaire Graff wine estate outside Stellenbosch in the Cape Winelands, which includes luxury lodges decorated by other works in his art collection.
The film, he explained, was composed of layers, because the Flanders of the painting is a surreal figment of the artist's imagination, comprising seven different perspectives.
He won't reveal how much the artwork cost but says it is an "emotional painting" that allows him to imagine what it must have been like waiting for news from loved ones during wartime.
Arrested in 1936, Sally, a Russian-born Jew, is sent to Mauthausen concentration camp, in Germany, where he survives for five years by painting Nazi kitsch.
Reached for comment about the sale, Mr. Bailey remembers the Christie's painting fondly and notes that the correct title of the painting is "Via Alberti, " for the 15th century Italian scholar whom he greatly admires.
If you left the painting to your nephew, he might prefer a higher value, but if your estate is taxable, the rest of your heirs will want a lower value.
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It is quite possible, if Picasso had died the day he painted Les Demoiselles that neither he nor his painting of five awkward-looking, two-dimensional prostitutes parading their wares in front of the viewer would be any more than footnotes in the story of modern art.
Nor is it to rule out the right of an individual artist to negotiate a resale agreement when he sells a painting: the royalties a publisher pays to an author are the product of just such a private contract, not a law.
Now he is a plasterer and a decorator - so he was there with his sleeves rolled up and taking part in the painting, although on a Saturday afternoon he was a star of the midfield.
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