(Warning to our sensitive viewers/readers: This story contains images of nudity)
New York - Amedeo Modigliani’s painting of a sultry nude fetched $170.4m (R2.4bn) from a Chinese buyer at Christie’s on Monday, a record for the Italian artist at auction.
Estimated at more than $100m, Modigliani’s 1917 painting, Nu Couche (Reclining Nude), has the highest valuation among almost 2 000 lots offered by three major auction houses during semi-annual sales of Impressionist, modern, post-war and contemporary art in New York.