A former mistress of Pablo Picasso has sold 20 of the artist’s sketches of her at a Paris auction, reaping a total of $ 1.87 million. The works included a pencil-on-paper drawing of a reclining nude that sold for $ 575,357 - about three times the estimated price.

“I am so happy, because it has been over 50 years that I have had them,” said Genevieve Laporte, who had a two-year secret affair with Picasso in the 1950s, when she was in her 20s. The auction was expected to collect no more than $ 2.4 million. The Picasso Museum in Paris snapped up the priciest lot – the sensual image of reclining nude entitled “Odalisque”. Describing the sketch in the sale catalogue, Laporte recalled how she had fallen asleep just as Picasso was preparing to draw: “He waited patiently until I opened my eyes to continue his sketch!”

Francis Briest, the auctioneer, said the take for that drawing was the largest ever for a Picasso work created in 1951: “His works of the postwar period typically don’t earn as much as earlier ones.” A similar but closer-up pose, entitled “Le Songe” was sold to an unidentified British collector for $ 507,239, more than twice the estimated price, Briest said. Laporte, now 79, told The Associated Press in an interview this month that she kept the sketches Picasso gave her in a safe because she was worried about thieves - but now was ready to part with them.