Modigliani masterpiece to lead Sotheby's May auctions with estimate of $150 million

Sotheby’s unveiled Amedeo Modigliani’s stunning Nu couché (sur le côté gauche) to a packed audience of collectors and media, who are the first ever to view the masterpiece on exhibition in Asia. The painting is estimated to sell for in excess of $150 million in Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on 14 May 2018 – the highest estimate ever placed on a work of art at auction. Painted a century ago, Nu couché is the greatest work from the iconic series in which Modigliani reinvented the nude for the Modern era. Upon their debut exhibition in 1917, these striking and sensual images stopped traffic – quite literally – and prompted the police to close the show. Today, the series is recognized as one of the seminal achievements in Modern painting. The shock and awe that Modigliani’s nudes continue to elicit was evident most recently during Tate Modern’s celebrated retrospective of the a