"Reclining Nude" was painted by Amedeo Modigliani during 1917-1918. (Photo : Wikimedia)
Liu Yiqian, a prominent Chinese art collector, spent $170.4 million (around 1.084 billion yuan) on the painting "Reclining Nude" by Amedeo Modigliani at Christie's in New York on Monday, a new record for a Modigliani piece, according to Artron.net.
The sale also marks the second-highest price for a work of art at an auction, next only to "Women of Algiers" by Pablo Picasso, which sold for $179 million in May, also at Christie's.
The work was painted by Italian modernist painter Amedeo Modigliani during 1917-1918. The artist has a reputation for painting portraits and nudes in a modern style, notable for having elongated faces and figures.
Liu, who with his wife founded the Long Museum in Shanghai, has always attracted media attention with his purchase of artworks. Last year, he bought an imperial embroidered silk Thangka for around $45 million and a Doucai Chenghua "chicken cup" for $36 million, according to a report by China Daily.
The Modigliani painting was auctioned together with 33 other works as part of an "Artist's Muse" sale.
The bidding for the painting started at $75 million, which already beat Modigliani's previous auction record of $70.7 million. It increased in $5 million increments before a telephone buyer won with a bid of $152 million.
The final price of the painting was $170,405,000, after Christie's commission of just over 12 percent was added.
Christie's estimated the piece would sell for more than $100 million.
The auction earned a total of $494.4 million in total, despite 30 percent of the works going unsold. This was within the pre-sale estimate of $442 million to $540 million.
