Imagine you just sold a painting for $139 million. It's not just any painting; it's Pablo Picasso's 1932 masterpiece, Le Rêve ("The Dream"). You're celebrating in your Las Vegas casino office with a few close friends, telling them the incredible story behind the artwork before you hand it over to the buyer.
Then, you gesture a little too enthusiastically. And you put your elbow right through the canvas.
The Most Expensive Clumsy Moment in History
That is exactly what happened to Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn in October 2006. Wynn had agreed to sell the sensual portrait of Picasso's mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter, to hedge fund billionaire Steven A. Cohen. It was set to be the highest price ever paid for a piece of art at the time.
To give the painting a proper send-off, Wynn invited friends like screenwriter Nora Ephron and journalist Barbara Walters to his office at the Wynn Las Vegas. As he was speaking, Wynn—who suffers from an eye disease called retinitis pigmentosa that severely affects his peripheral vision—took a step back and threw his hand out.
His elbow drove straight into Marie-Thérèse’s left forearm, ripping a terrible, silver-dollar-sized hole right through the canvas. The sound, according to those in the room, was a horrifying crunch.
Wynn supposedly looked at the tear and said, "Oh shit, look what I've done. Thank God it was me."
The Aftermath
The record-breaking $139 million sale was instantly canceled. Wynn kept the painting and spent $90,000 on some of the most advanced, microscopic restoration work in the world. Master conservators painstakingly repaired the canvas weave and matched the paint so perfectly that the tear became completely invisible to the naked eye.
But the story doesn't end with a ruined masterpiece. In an unbelievable twist, Steven A. Cohen still wanted the painting. In March 2013, seven years after the infamous elbow incident, Cohen bought the fully restored Le Rêve from Wynn. The price? A staggering $155 million—$16 million more than the original deal.
It turns out that surviving a Las Vegas casino accident didn't hurt the Picasso's value at all. If anything, the sheer absurdity of the story just added to the painting's legendary status.
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