Twice in 10 years, Pablo Picasso’s celebrated 1932 painting of his sleeping mistress, Marie-Therese Walter, made international headlines. Alas, the artist’s breathtaking skill and candid insight into human nature were not the cause.

First, on a chilly Manhattan night in November 1997, “Le Reve” -- “The Dream” – broke all records for a single-owner sale. Then, on a hot Las Vegas evening in September 2006, a new owner poked a hole in the painting with an errant elbow while showing the prize to unexpectedly shocked friends.

Now, for the first time since the rip, “Le Reve” is returning to public view. On Wednesday, New York’s Acquavella Galleries will present “Picasso’s Marie-Therese,” a survey of works inspired by the middle-aged artist’s nine-year affair with the pretty, young blonde. Loans are coming from private collections and major museums, including the Museum of Modern Art and London’s Tate.

The puncture left a several-inch tear across Marie-Therese’s voluptuous left forearm. What happened in Vegas didn’t stay there, as the calamity was reported in a New York Post gossip column, complete with factual errors, 10 days later. Soon, variations on the horrible tale appeared on the Internet, in print and on global TV and radio.

The ballooning art market was the headline. In 1997, the painting had fetched $48.8 million at a landmark sale. In 2006, the damage occurred a day after its owner, casino and resort mogul Steve Wynn, had arranged to sell the painting privately – an abruptly cancelled $139-million deal, perhaps the most money ever for a painting.No cynicism is needed to assume that one goal of the exhibition is to publicly demonstrate that repairs to “Le Reve” have not had serious effect on its market value. William Acquavella has brokered many of Wynn’s art acquisitions over the years, perhaps including this one. (Wynn bought the Picasso privately in 2001.) The Upper Eastside gallery is housed in the old Astor mansion on 79th Street, a stone’s throw from the Metropolitan Museum. There, many Old Masters paintings would reveal, if they could be taken down and examined from the back, any number of damage repairs made over centuries. Not all masterpieces are pristine.

Yet, like torn canvas and buckled brush strokes, reputations can also need fixing. The celebrated multivolume Picasso biography by John Richardson is not kind to the current state of “Le Reve.” Volume 3, published in November 2007, ends in 1932, the year when the author’s friend painted his erotic vision of Marie-Therese.

In a penultimate chapter titled “Annus Mirabilis” – year of miracles – Richardson caustically writes, “’The Dream’ has become one of Picasso’s most popular images; sadly, the record prices it fetched in 1997 and 2006 and its renown as a tourist attraction at a Las Vegas casino have left this painting so sullied that it is difficult to judge it on its merits.” Poppycock. Surely Wednesday’s gilded uptown exhibition (through Nov 29) is meant to begin the public process of un-sullying it. But the claim is sheer nonsense, exposed by the silly snobbishness of the Vegas crack.

What makes the painting so exceptional is its exalted place in a hallowed tradition that includes Titian’s “Venus of Urbino,” Caravaggio’s “Triumphant Cupid,” Courbet’s “Origin of the World” and many more.

On the fourth Sunday of 1932, Picasso painted Marie-Therese snoozing in a red-hot upholstered armchair. “Le Reve” is an exquisite Modern sex painting and a brilliant, justifiably famous masterpiece.

Astronomical prices and an insurance-busting mishap are fun to contemplate. But Picasso’s erotic masterpiece represents something far more fundamental. Suffice to say, “Le Reve” is what makes the world go round.—Dawn/LA Times-Washington Post News Service