The art market showed unexpected strength Monday night as Christie’s kicked off its November sales week with the record auction price of $170 million, including fees, for Amedeo Modigliani’s “Reclining Nude.”
The auction for the 1917 painting blew away the previous record price of $70.7 million for a Modigliani sculpture auctioned at Sotheby’s in November 2014.
The seller was listed as Laura Mattioli Rossi, the daughter of the Italian art collector Gianni Mattioli.
The heated bidding took just a half-hour and suggests recent economic and stock-market skittishness won’t spoil Christie’s full week of contemporary-art sales.
“Reclining Nude” no doubt received some immunity from economic ills for having never before appeared on the auction block.
It also stands atop Modigliani’s relatively small output of paintings — only 350 before succumbing to tuberculosis at age 35 in 1920. That compares to thousands of Picassos that artist made in his 91 years.
“This is the painting that defines Modigliani,” said Mariolina Bassetti, Christie’s chairman and international director, Italy.