Modigliani painting fetches $157 million at auction

A 1917 painting by Amedeo Modigliani of a reclining nude woman that was once considered obscene in Paris sold for more than $157 million (Dh576.5m) at an auction in Manhattan on Monday. Nu couche (sur le

cote gauche) was the highlight of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art sale featuring Pablo Picasso works spanning seven decades, and paintings by Claude Monet, Edvard Munch and Georgia O’Keeffe. Modigliani shocked Europe at the turn of the 19th century with his series of 22 nudes reclining in every possible position. When the Italianborn, Jewish artist’s nudes were unveiled at a Paris gallery, police demanded that it be shut down, offended by the unflinching strokes of his oil brush that thrust art’s nude figure into the modern era. In the past half-dozen years, prices for Modigliani’s works have soared, from the $26m the current owner paid for

Nu couche (sur le cote gauche) in 2003 to as much as $170m. Picasso’s Le Repos, an image of his lover and “golden muse,” Marie-Therese Walter, sold for $40m. It was one of 11 Picasso works that were offered. Monet’s Matinee

sur la Seine (Morning on the Seine), part of a line-up of river landscapes he painted while on a boat, brought in $20.6m. Both Munch’s Summer Night and O’Keeffe’s Lake George

with White Birch each fetched more than $11m. Modigliani’s painting, which had the highest pre-auction estimate at $150m, was still well short of the record for the most expensive painting ever sold. Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator

Mundi sold last year at Christie’s for $450m.