Christie's Talks Up A Modigliani Nude - WSJ

Christies Talks Up a Modigliani Nude - WSJ
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BUSINESS
Christies Talks Up a Modigliani

Nude
With art skyrocketing, auction house may ask $100 million for painting
A Modigliani up for auction in February at Christies in London. Expectations are high

for the Italian artists
Reclining Nude that goes up for sale this fall.
PHOTO: CARL COURT/GETTY IMAGES
By
KELLY CROW
Sept. 2, 2015 7:03 p.m. ET
http://www.wsj.com/articles/christies-talks-up-a-modigliani-nude-1441234981[9/11/2015 6:50:23 PM]
10
COMMENTS
Summer isnt over, but one of the worlds chief

auction houses is already starting to divulge
details about the trophy paintings it aims to sell this fall. On Wednesday, Christies
International said it expects to ask roughly $100 million for an Amedeo Modigliani portrait of a
nude woman from 1917.
A few years ago, it
would have been unthinkable to give such a high estimate on any work of
art, but prices for blue-chip paintings have skyrocketed in recent seasons. Last May, a collector
paid Christies nearly $180 million
for a Pablo Picasso painting. Increasingly, $100 million is
the new bar for a masterpiece.
Modiglianis seller is the art historian Laura Mattioli Rossi, the daughter of acclaimed collector
Gianni Mattioli, according to people familiar with the matter. At least 26 other works from the
familys collection are now displayed in the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice. Christies
declined to comment on the identity of the seller.
It remains to be seen if this Reclining
Nude can fetch more than $100 million,
but the painting is certainly a sumptuous
example of Modiglianis signature style.
Modigliani was a
bohemian painter from
Livorno, Italy, who settled in Paris during
the early 20th century and gained fame for
Amedeo Modiglianis Reclining Nude, painted in
1917-1918.
PHOTO: CHRISTIE
his portraits of nude women with elongated

necks and beady eyes. Before he died of
tubercular meningitis in 1920 at age 35, he
won praise from artists like Picasso and Chaim Soutine for the modern way he composed his
figures.
Reclining
Nude depicts a nude brunette with cherry lips, a pixie hairdo and a swan-like neck
who lies stretched across a red coverlet with a blue pillow, her eyes coyly closed. To give his
odalisque a modern twist, he zooms in on her sensuous form, cutting her hands and lower legs
from the frame. Her heart-shape face also reveals Modiglianis fondness for Cycladic figures
from antiquity.
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His
sitters identity remains a mysteryshe could be a friend, model or prostitutebut her face
is reminiscent of another Modigliani nude from the same year, Nude Sitting on a Sofa (Belle
Romaine), that sold at Sothebys for $68.9 million five years ago, a record high at the time for
the artist.
The
current record for a Modigliani is $70.7 million, set last fall when Sothebys sold his 191112 stone figure of a Head.
Although
the artist painted several dozen nudes between 1916-1919, this version has never been
to auction, which adds to its appeal. Christies global President Jussi Pylkknen called this
version museum-worthy. (Other versions from the same series now hang in museums
including New Yorks Metropolitan Museum of Art.)
Bids are taken during a

record-breaking auction of a sculpture at Christies in May. The auction house is
promoting other high-priced pieces.
PHOTO: KATHY WILLENS/ASSOCIATED PRESS
The painting will be offered Nov. 9 in New York a stand-alone auction called The Artists
Muse, a mixed sale that will span Impressionist, modern and contemporary art, similar to the
$706 million mixed sale held at the same house in May.
As
a result of that success, Christies said it plans to once again combine its typical two weeks
of November auctions into a single week. Sothebys stuck to its traditional two-week schedule
for the spring sales; it hasnt said yet whether it will reconfigure its sales schedule this fall.
Write to Kelly Crow at kelly.crow@wsj.com
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