A $150 Million Modigliani Nude Poised to Be 2018's Top Sale
Horse Breeder Is Said to Be Selling $150 Million Modigliani Nude
(Bloomberg) -- Irish bloodstock billionaire John Magnier is selling an Amedeo Modigliani nude estimated at $150 million, the most for any work of art at auction this season, according to people familiar with the matter.
The 1917 “Nu couche (sur le cote gauche)" depicts a reclining female nude from behind, one leg bent, looking calmly over her shoulder at the viewer -- a pose almost identical to “La Grande Odalisque" by Ingres from a century earlier. The piece, previously owned by casino mogul Steve Wynn, will be the star lot of Sotheby’s Impressionist and modern art sale on May 14 in New York.
The May auction season is poised to be the biggest on record, driven by Christie’s offering a trove of masterpieces from the estate of David Rockefeller. The top end of the art market has been on a tear, with global art sales ringing up $63.7 billion in 2017, a 12 percent increase from a year earlier. Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi" fetched $450.3 million in November, the most expensive work ever sold.
“This is among the greatest modern paintings in private hands,” Simon Shaw, Sotheby’s co-head of Impressionist and modern art, said of the Modigliani. “The scale, the power, the subtlety, the fine level of finish -- it’s something he really threw himself into. He was painting it as a masterpiece."
Tate Modern
If the painting looks familiar, that’s because images of it have been plastered around London for months. It was the cover of Tate Modern’s exhibition of the artist’s 12 nudes that ran from Nov. 23 through April 2.
Magnier, 70, bought the nude for $26.9 million at Christie’s in 2003 when it was sold by Wynn, said people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the information is private.
Sotheby’s and Magnier declined to comment on the identity of the seller.
Magnier owns Coolmore Stud, the world’s biggest breeder of thoroughbred racehorses and his wife Susan co-owns a promising 3-year-old colt, fittingly named Amedeo Modigliani. With farms in Ireland, Australia and the U.S., Coolmore and its training facility, Ballydoyle, have produced hundreds of winners of all the world’s major races. The operation also owns about 48 stallions, whose stud fees range from $7,500 to $125,000. The fees for Triple Crown-winner American Pharoah haven’t been disclosed. Coolmore acquired the breeding rights for $13.8 million, the New York Times reported in 2015.
Irrevocable Bid
Sotheby’s said it offered the seller a guarantee and found a client to back it with an irrevocable bid that ensures it will sell.
Like many top consignments for May, the work is being unveiled in Hong Kong, Sotheby’s said. Christie’s premiered the highlights of the Rockefeller collection in Hong Kong in November.
Another Modigliani nude sold for a record $170.4 million in 2015 at Christie’s. Its buyer was the Long Museum in China, founded by billionaire Liu Yiqian.
--With assistance from Neil Callanan
To contact the reporters on this story: Katya Kazakina in New York at kkazakina@bloomberg.net, Devon Pendleton in London at dpendleton@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net, Peter Eichenbaum, Steven Crabill
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