Modigliani nude painting brings $170.4m at auctionNovember 10, 2015 - 14:41 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - A painting by Italian artist Modigliani was sold at auction on Monday, November 9, for $170.4m, the second-highest price ever for a work sold at auction, BBC News reports. Nu couche (Reclining Nude) was sold at Christie's in New York to a private Chinese collector. It had never been sold at auction before, having been in the same private collection for about 60 years. The top price achieved for an art work at auction was Picasso's Les femmes d'Alger which sold for $179m. That was also sold at Christie's in May this year, BBC says. Nu couche, painted during 1917 and 1918, was estimated to fetch more than $100m before the auction took place. The price achieved was also a record for the artist. About half a dozen bidders competed for the Modigliani at the sale, which also included 33 other works, such as Paul Gauguin's sculpture Therese, which sold for $30,965,000. Roy Lichtenstein's Nurse, fetched $95,365,000, a new world auction record for the artist and was the second-biggest seller of the night. The sale took an auction total of $494.4m but it was not all good news - nearly 30% of the works up for grabs went unsold, including Lucian Freud's Naked Portrait on a Red Sofa, which was estimated at as much as $30m but failed to sell. Jussi Pylkkanen, Christie's global president said the sale of Nu couche was "well-deserved recognition for the artist to have realized a price $100m higher than any other (Modigliani) work previously offered at auction". While Picasso and Modigliani are the top two sales at auction, the most expensive work of art ever sold was a Paul Gauguin work which fetched $300m earlier this year. Nafea Faa Ipoipo, or When Will You Marry? was painted in 1892 and was sold privately. Photo. Christie's Top stories Paris Center Pompidou Musée National d’Art Moderne will host the screening of Sergei Parajanov’s "Triptych" on December 15. The creative crew of the Public TV had chosen 13-year-old Malena as a participant of this year's contest. She called on others to also suspend their accounts over the companies’ failure to tackle hate speech. Penderecki was known for his film scores, including for William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist”, Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining”. Partner news | Armenia to participate in key EU meeting for the first time ever National Assembly speaker Alen Simonyan has said that Armenia will for the first time participate in the Conference. U.S. reacts to Russia’s criticism of upcoming Armenia-EU-U.S. meeting Matthew Miller has weighed in on Russia’s criticism of an upcoming Armenia-EU-U.S. meeting. Lavrov sees ‘collapse’ of Russia’s ties with Armenia Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has underscored heightened tensions between Russia and Armenia. Russia clarifying reports on Baku’s alleged arms supply to Ukraine Russia says is carefully working to verify reports about alleged arms supplies from Azerbaijan to Ukraine |