Picasso's granddaughter could upend the art market

The granddaughter of Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, Marina Picasso, poses in her house 'Pavillon de Flore', on June 19, 2013, in Cannes, southeastern France. EAN CHRISTOPHE MAGNENET/AFP/Getty Images

GRASSE, France - When Pablo Picasso died in 1973, he left behind no will and a trove of an estimated 70,000 works of art. In the decades since, that collection has been the subject of numerous thefts, forgeries, courtroom dramas and secretive sales. Complicating matters is the tangled legacy of his gifts to his four children and eight grandchildren, as well as numerous wives and muses and hangers-on.

On the legal art market, his pieces still rake in millions of dollars every year, and two recent developments could shake up the international race to own a piece of the famed Spanish artist.

Marina Picasso, a granddaughter of the artist, is reportedly aggressively selling off some of her 10,000-piece collection of his art.

She has allegedly already begun privately shopping seven of the works, valued at $290 million, reports Page Six.

While Marina Picasso has denied she has decided exactly how many artworks she will sell, she did tell The New York Times: "It's better for me to sell my works and preserve the money to redistribute to humanitarian causes."

Speculation has intensified among collectors that she could flood the market and depress prices, The New York Times reports.

In her memoir, Marina Picasso wrote about an upbringing in which her grandfather, "drove everyone who got near him to despair and engulfed them."

Marina Picasso is the daughter of Picasso's son Paulo, and "she has long kept her distance from the rest of the family," the New York Times reports.

In addition to the questions over Marina Picasso's collection, a courtroom in France is now also asking whether Pablo Picasso would have donated 271 works to an electrician who worked for him for a few years in southeast France.

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Picasso's granddaughter could upend the art market