Painting sells for $170m in New York, $9m less than Picasso’s Women of Algiers, in New York auction that also set Lichtenstein and Gauguin records

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A painting by Amedeo Modigliani has fetched $170m (£113m) at an auction in New York, setting a world record for the artist.

Reclining Nude was sold at Christie’s on Monday after a protracted bidding battle. It was the second highest price ever achieved at auction for a work of art.

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Christie’s said the painting was bought by private Chinese collectors. The Wall Street Journal named them as the billionaire investor Liu Yiqian and his wife, Wang Wei.

Asian collectors have been especially active in the art market for the past few seasons.



The 1917-1918 painting is considered one of his best known works and nearly created a scandal when it was first exhibited in Paris. The previous auction record for a Modigliani was $71m.

Pablo Picasso’s painting Women of Algiers (Version O) holds the record for the highest sum ever paid for an artwork at auction. It sold for $179.4m at Christie’s in May.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Nurse by Roy Lichtenstein, seen here in an advert for Christie’s auction, sold for $95m. Photograph: Andrew Kelly/Reuters

A Roy Lichtenstein painting not seen on the market for 20 years also set a world record. Nurse sold for $95m, almost doubling the previous auction record for the pop artist of $56m.

Impressionist, modern and contemporary art by well-known artists “do not require a tremendous amount of aesthetic or intellectual risk on the part of the collector,” said Sarah Lichtman, assistant professor of design history at Parsons School of Design in New York. “They are beautiful paintings, some even exceptional as is the Modigliani, but they are tried and true.”

Christie’s expects to sell at least $1bn of art over a series of evening, day and online sales this week.

“There is clearly good appetite among collectors for exceptional works of art offered with appropriate estimates,” said Brook Hazelton of Christie’s. “This is a very broad and globally diverse market at the moment, with strong interest in paintings, sculpture and works on paper from the $10,000 level straight up to multimillion-dollar masterpieces at the top end.”

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Also on sale on Monday night were two major works by Paul Gauguin from his Tahiti period.

Therese, a carved wooden figure of a Tahitian woman, brought in a record $30.9m, topping its presale estimate of $25m. The previous auction record for a sculpture by the artist was $11m.

The other Gauguin, Young Man with a Flower, is a painting of a Tahitian youth wearing a white shirt, loose cravat and a white blossom tucked behind his ear. Christie’s said it fetched $13.6m.

The portrait’s first owner was Henri Matisse, who paid 200 francs for it in 1900. Later owners included Lillie Bliss, one of the founders of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The current auction record for a Gauguin painting is $40.3m.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lucian Freud’s The Brigadier will go up for auction on Tuesday. Photograph: Bebeto Matthews/AP

Christie’s has called the current sale The Artisit’s Muse. Among other highlights is Pablo Picasso’s Man with a Sword, a self-portrait of the artist as a musketeer created in 1969. It sold for $22.5m. Christie’s said interest in Picasso’s late period musketeer portraits has grown dramatically in recent years.

Also of interest were two works by Lucian Freud.

Naked Portrait on a Red Sofa is a portrait of the artist’s daughter, the fashion designer Bella Freud. Its pre-sale estimate was $20m-$30m, but it failed to sell on Monday night. It is one of a series of portraits of his daughters and this was the first time it had been offered at auction.

On Tuesday, Christie’s is offering Freud’s Brigadier, a portrait of Andrew Parker Bowles, the former husband of Camilla Parker-Bowles. It was on view at the artist’s 2012 retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery in London and shows the career soldier wearing his sumptuous army brigadier uniform. It’s estimated to sell for $30m.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Louise Bourgeois’ Spider has an estimate of $25m-$35m. Photograph: Justin Lane/EPA

Tuesday’s postwar and contemporary art sale also has a mammoth bronze Spider sculpture by Louise Bourgeois, estimated at $25m-$35m. If realised, that price would exceed the artist’s current auction record of $10.7m and set a record for a sculpture by a female artist.