Ari Hodara, an engineer and art enthusiast, learned he had won an original Pablo Picasso painting worth more than €1m (£870,000; $1.2m) in a charity raffle when he answered a video call from Christie’s auction house in Paris, according to the BBC.

Raffle Details and Fundraising Impact

The raffle. Organized by French journalist Peri Cochin with support from Picasso’s family and foundation, sold more than 120,000 tickets at €100 (£87; $118) each, raising around €11m (£10m; $13m) for Alzheimer’s research. This amount will be donated to France’s Alzheimer’s Research Foundation, with €1m going to the Opera Gallery, the painting’s owner.

The draw was the third edition of the ‘1 Picasso for 100 euros’ fundraising raffle, which was founded in 2013; this year’s prize was Tête de Femme (Head of a Woman), a gouache-on-paper portrait rendered in Picasso’s signature style. It depicts his partner and muse, the French surrealist artist Dora Maar.

The Winning Ticket and Hodara’s Reaction

Hodara’s ticket was number 94,715. He said he bought it over the weekend after learning about the competition by chance, as During a phone call with auctioneers after the draw, he said, ‘I was surprised, that’s it. When you bet on this. You don’t expect to win.. — But I’m very happy because I’m very interested in painting, and it’s great news for me.’.

When Hodara was told he had won, he asked, ‘How do I know this isn’t a prank?’ The 58-year-old engineer and art enthusiast was initially skeptical about the outcome, according to the BBC.

Organizers and the Significance of the Location

Cochin said it was a ‘great thing’ that the winner lived in Paris, despite tickets being sold in dozens of countries worldwide; she added that it would be very easy for them to deliver the painting, so they were happy with the outcome.

The city is also where Picasso himself lived and worked for much of his life, and thousands of the artist’s paintings, prints, and sculptures are on display in its museums. Hodara’s win is significant, as it highlights the continued relevance of Picasso’s work and the impact of charity initiatives.

Olivier de Ladoucette, the head of France’s Alzheimer’s Research Foundation, said the Picasso initiative is ‘one more building block so that one day Alzheimer’s will be nothing more than a bad memory,’ according to the AFP news agency.

The first edition of the raffle was won by a 25-year-old American from Pennsylvania in 2013, with funds raised to help preserve the Lebanese city of Tyre—a Unesco World Heritage Site. A 58-year-old Italian accountant won the second edition in 2020 after her son bought her a ticket for Christmas. Proceeds were donated to sanitation projects in schools and villages in Cameroon, Madagascar, and Morocco.