Ring designed by Pablo Picasso to appease angry lover goes up for auction

A ring designed and crafted by Pablo Picasso to appease his angry lover is expected to fetch up to £500,000 at an auction on Wednesday.

The artist gifted the jewellery to his muse, painter and poet Dora Maar, after she impulsively threw her own ring into the River Seine during a lovers' tiff in the 1930s.

Picasso was said to be angry she had persuaded him to swap a piece of artwork for a cabochon ruby ring, so she took it off her finger and launched it into the water.

Feeling guilty, Picasso created a replacement featuring her portrait, which she kept until her death in 1997.

It is going under the hammer at the Sotheby's Actual Size sale following the sale of her estate.

Curator Thomas Bompard said: "Picasso has depicted a world on a scale so intimate you can hold an entire artistic vision on your finger. Sometimes the smallest of things can contain a universe of thought and emotion, and so it is with this ring - an intimate piece that allows us a captivating glimpse into secrets that might otherwise not be shared."