Picasso’s “Femme Assise,” painted in the summer of 1909 — when the artist traveled to the remote Spanish village of Horta de Ebro, which could only be reached by mule — sold for $63.7 million at Sotheby’s in London on Tuesday, making it the most expensive Cubist painting ever sold at auction.

“It has been decades since a Cubist painting of this caliber has been offered at auction,” Helena Newman, a global co-head of Impressionist and Modern art at Sotheby’s, said in a statement. “Virtually all the significant works of this period are in international museums and institutions.”

The painting, which depicts Picasso’s lover and model Fernande Olivier, was last sold at auction in 1973 at Sotheby’s in London for about $500,000 in today’s dollars. The work was bought on behalf of a telephone bidder by Adam Chinn, part of Art Agency, Partners, an art advisory company that was recently acquired by Sotheby's.

The overall record for a Picasso was set last year with the sale of the 1955 painting “Les Femmes d’Alger (Version ‘O’)” for $179.4 million at Christie’s.