Modigliani nude fetches £116m at auction, failing to set new record for Italian artist

The 1917 oil painting, "Nu couche (sur le cote gauche)" by Amedeo Modigliani
AP

A “shocking” Modigliani nude has sold for a staggering $157.2 million (£116 million), becoming the fourth most expensive work of art ever to be sold at auction.

Nu couché (sur le côté gauche), the most famous of a series of 35 nudes by the vagabond Italian artist, had already broken a record for its pre-sale estimate of $150 million.

But by just meeting expectations and failing to set a record even for a Modigliani, the canvas fell short of a handful of recently auctioned trophy works at the auction in New York on Monday.

It fell short most notably of Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi," which soared to $450.3 million at rival Christie's in November after several top-tier collectors competed furiously.

That work carried a pre-sale estimate of about $100 million.

An image of the painting 'Nu Couche (sur le cote gauche)' by artist Amedeo Modigliani is displayed during the sales event of The Modern Art Auction at Sothebys auction house in New York
EPA

Sotheby's was quick to note, while the auction was still live, that "Nu couche" had achieved the highest price of any work in the 274-year-old auction house's history.

And in a sign of soaring prices at the art market's highest echelons, the same work sold in 2003 for $27 million.

But it could not be denied that only a handful of collectors at most bid for the work, which fell short of the $170.4 million record for a Modigliani set in 2015.

Officials were relegated to characterizing the sale as "measured," a tacit admission that it was devoid of the free-spending frenzy that has marked recent auctions at both Sotheby's and Christie's.

"It was not an exuberant room," Simon Shaw, co-head of Impressionist and modern art, told Reuters afterward. But he added that "it was an ordered, efficient sale which achieved a total within its estimated range."

The auction took in $318.3 million, just beating the $307.4 million low pre-sale estimate. Of the 45 lots on offer, 71 percent found buyers.

Other highlights included Pablo Picasso's "Le Repos," which achieved $36.9 million and beat its high estimate of $35 million, and Claude Monet's "Matinee sur la Seine," which fetched $20.55 million, at the low end of the $18 million to $25 million estimate.

Georgia O'Keefe's "Lake George with White Birch" soared to $11.3 million, or nearly twice the high estimate, but another Picasso, "Femme au chien" estimated at $12 million to $18 million, failed to sell when no bids exceeded $11 million.

The spring auctions continue on Tuesday when Christie's holds its Impressionist and modern art sale.

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