Pablo Picasso��s "Le Reve".

LAS VEGAS, NV.- After agreeing to sell Pablo Picasso''s "Le Reve" for $139 million, Steve Wynn accidentally put a hole in the work with his elbow while showing the work to guests in his office. Steve Wynn struck the painting with his right elbow which left a hole in the left forearm of Marie-Theresa Walter, Picasso''s 21-year-old mistress. The hole is the size of a silver dollar.

An aide to Steve Wynn announced that he will keep and restore the painting he accidentally damaged. Steve Wynn uses gestures with his hands while speaking and also has retinitis pigmentosa, so his peripheral vision is affected. There were other masterpieces in the room, one by Renoir ad another by Matisse, but they were not damaged.

Steve Wynn was reported to have reacted by swearing out loud, and later saying he was glad he, and not someone else, was responsible for the damage. Among the guests present when this happened were Barbara Walters, Nora Ephron, ad Louise Grunwald, widow of Henry Grunwald.

Steve Wynn had bought the Picasso for US$48.4 million in 1997. He had agreed to sell the painting to art collector Steven Cohen for US$139 million, which would have been US$4 million higher than the US$135 million that cosmetics magnate Ronald Lauder paid in July for Gustav Klimt''s 1907 portrait, Adele Bloch-Bauer I.