The ‘Man in the Opera Hat’, a Cubist work in gouache by Picasso, is valued at $1 million.
It has been placed in a Christmas charity raffle with tickets on sale for €100.
An anonymous donor bought the work from an art gallery in New York and then gave it to a charity working to save the ancient city of Tyre in southern Lebanon.
Around 50,000 tickets have been on sale, with some 10,000 remaining. Information in several languages is available on the website 1picasso100euros.com.
The tombola, the first of its kind, will be on 18 December at Sotheby’s in Paris.
Olivier Picasso, Pablo’s grandson by his mistress Marie-Therese Walter, described the signed "L'Homme au Gibus" or "Man in the Opera Hat," painted in 1914, as a "masterpiece" of museum standard in perfect condition.
Although he never met his grandfather, he feels certain that the artist would have approved.
"In many ways he was excited about exploration, so for sure being the first one to be in a raffle would be exciting but more seriously he was really concerned by other people's problems.
"In the '50s for example he was receiving something like 100 requests per day for money, for participations, for a gift and I've been told most of the requests were answered," he said.
