Chinese billionaire buys Modigliani painting for $170 mn

A Chinese billionaire who was once a taxi driver bought Amedeo Modigliani's Nu Couche for $170.4 million on Monday at Christie's in New York, making it the second-highest auction price for any artwork.

Pablo Picasso's Les Femmes d'Alger (Version O) holds the spot of the most expensive painting sold at an auction at $179 million.

Though the name of the buyer was anonymous at the time of the auction, Bloomberg later revealed that Modigliani's masterpiece was now the possession of Chinese billionaire Liu Yiqian.

Liu, who was once a taxi driver according to The New York Times and made his billions on the stock markets in the 1980s and '90s, owns two museums in Shanghai, along with his wife Wang Wei - the Long Museum Pudong, which opened in 2012; and the Long Museum West Bund, which opened last year.

According to Bloomberg, Liu often pays for his expensive art purchases with his American Express credit cards, earning millions of credit point. But whether he would pay for Modigliani's Nu Couche with his credit card was not revealed.

The oil on canvas painting by the early 20th century Italian artist was created in 1917 as part of a series of nudes for his patron, the Polish dealer Leopold Zborowski. Depicting a dark-haired woman on a red couch with a blue pillow, it is one of Modigliani's most famous and reproduced works. On being first displayed in Paris, a few years after being created, it almost created a scandal.

"This painting leaps off the page as the most vibrant, sexual, lyrical of the catalogue raisonne," said Ana Maria Celis, a Christie's specialist in postwar and contemporary art, to the NYT.

The bidding for the Modigliani's canvas attracted six bidders, and it took nine minutes to sell. The seller was Laura Mattioli Rossi, the daughter of the Italian collector Gianni Mattioli.

Christie's also sold Roy Lichtenstein "Nurse" for $95.4 million the same night.

Brett Gorvy, Christie's chairman, told Financial Times the auction house's second "curated" sale, was assembled over summer in an environment of volatile financial markets. It united works of artists from across periods and themes and it was "very, very important to see how strong" the market was for works over $100 million.

He also said: "That there were eight bidders over that mark demonstrated how dynamic the market is for the masterpiece level… the demand was strong magical moment of rarity, quality and beauty all represented in the same object."