Picasso painting at center of pricey divorce sells for $37M

A Picasso painting at the center of a nasty divorce battle between billionaire bond king Bill Gross and his ex-wife fetched $36.9 million at a Sotheby’s auction Monday night — slightly above the expected sale price.

The hammer price for Picasso’s 1932 “Le Repos,” which depicts the famed painter’s lover, Marie-Thérèse Walter, was 4½ times greater than the price it sold for in 2000, Sotheby’s said in a tweet Monday.

The piece was expected to sell for $35 million.

But the story behind how the painting made its way to Sotheby’s is just as juicy as anything found in the famed painter’s collection.

Sue Gross was awarded the painting in August 2017 after she and Bill agreed to divvy up some of the marital assets by making alternating picks. In a coin toss, Sue got to pick first — and selected the Picasso, The Post exclusively reported last week.

When Gross then tried to make arrangements to transfer the pricey piece of art — which he believed was hanging on the wall of his bedroom — to his wife, he was stunned to learn she already had it.

“Bill was shocked Sue already had the piece,” a source told The Post, adding that Bill said, “She stole the damn thing.”

It turns out Sue swapped out the real Picasso and replaced it with a copy of the masterpiece she had painted years before. Bill knew of the copy — and even wrote about it in a newsletter to clients — but didn’t know Sue pulled the ol’ switcheroo.

Sue admitted in November that she swapped paintings and said she did so because Bill instructed her, in an email sent as the two prepared for divorce, to “take all the furniture and art that you’d like.

“And so I did,” she said.

But it wasn’t quite that simple, as testimony revealed the ex-wife’s prowess for both painting and artful deception.

“Well, you didn’t take it and leave an empty spot on the wall, though, did you?” lawyers for Bill Gross asked.

“No,” Sue responded.

“You replaced it with a fake?” the lawyer asked.

“Well, it was a painting I painted,” Sue responded.

The Gross divorce was finalized on Oct. 6, 2017.

A portion of the proceeds from Monday’s sale will go to charity through The Sue J. Gross Foundation, Sotheby’s tweeted Monday.