Modigliani star of the Sotheby’s auction, the nude worth over 50 million euros in London

Precisely that year Modigliani held his first and only solo exhibition while alive, at Berthe Weill’s gallery in Paris. The exhibition went down in history for the scandal it caused: the nudes displayed in the window were deemed too audacious and the police ordered them to be closed on the same day as the inauguration. That episode contributed decisively to the birth of the myth of the cursed artist and transformed those paintings into symbols of modernity. Today those works are considered among the absolute pinnacles of twentieth-century painting. It is no coincidence that Modigliani’s two auction records belong to canvases from the same series, both entitled “Nu couché”, sold respectively for 170.4 million dollars in 2015 and 157.2 million in 2018. The artist is one of the very few protagonists of the international market to have twice exceeded the 100 million dollar threshold.

“Nu assis au collier” occupies a special place within this extraordinary cycle. The painting depicts a naked young woman sitting, caught in a pose that recalls the classical tradition of the modest Venus. The elongated body, the essential face, the gaze turned elsewhere and the coral necklace that gives the work its title perfectly summarize Modigliani’s language, suspended between the great Italian tradition and the avant-garde of the early twentieth century. In fact, the painting coexists with suggestions ranging from the Italian Renaissance and Mannerism to African sculptures, up to the formal research of Cubism. The result is a figure that appears both timeless and profoundly modern. Unlike academic representations of the female nude, Modigliani’s woman is not a mythological figure nor an allegory: she is a real presence, aware of her own nakedness, intense and autonomous.

The work was born thanks to the support of the art dealer Leopold Zborowski, who in 1917 offered the artist a daily salary of 15 francs to dedicate himself to a series of nudes. With limited means, Modigliani managed to create some of the most iconic images in the history of modern art, destined to influence generations of artists.

The painter’s personal story also continues to fuel his fascination. Born in Livorno in 1884, Modigliani died in Paris in January 1920, at just 35 years old, struck down by tuberculous meningitis. The next day his partner Jeanne Hébuterne, pregnant with their second child, committed suicide by throwing herself out of a window. A tragedy that contributed to building the romantic legend of the artist and which still accompanies the critical success of his works today.

Absent from the market since 1995 and not exhibited in Europe since 1938, “Nu assis au collier” arrives in London after having been presented in some of the most prestigious museums in the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. More than a century after its creation, the painting that scandalized Paris in the early twentieth century is now preparing to conquer international collectors. And once again it is Modigliani, the great artist from Livorno with a short and tormented life, who confirms himself as one of the most influential and sought-after figures of modern art. (by Paolo Martini)