A Chinese collector snapped up a sensuous Modigliani nude for $170.4 million in New York, setting a new world record price at auction for the Italian artist in a bumper Christie’s sale.
A Chinese collector snapped up a sensuous Modigliani nude for $170.4 million in New York, setting a new world record price at auction for the Italian artist in a bumper Christie’s sale.
The evening auction also set world auction records for US pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, whose Nurse fetched $95.37 million, as well as for 19th century French painter Gustave Courbet.
It raked in a total of $491.35 million, busting pre-sale estimates of $443 million marking a return to form after a sluggish opening auction at Sotheby’s suggested that bumper profits might be levelling off. Modigliani’s Nu Couche or Reclining Nude, painted in 1917-18, sold after a frantic nine-minute bidding war between seven would-be buyers on the first time the painting has ever come to auction. It was the second highest price ever achieved at auction for a work or art and applause erupted in the packed room when the sale concluded, clinched by a Chinese buyer on the telephone, Christie’s said. It was just $9 million shy of the world record of $179.4 million for Picasso’s The Women of Algiers (Version 0) — which the auction house sold in New York last May in a record-breaking spring season.
