Nu couché (sur le côté gauche) Auction History

Provenance: Léopold Zborowski, Paris (acquired from the artist, 1917); Jonas Netter, Paris (by 1926); by descent to a private collection, Paris; later to a private collection in the United States (dates not stated) [1].

Public auctions: Christie’s, New York, 4 Nov 2003, Lot 29 — $26,887,500 incl. premium [3][4]; Sotheby’s, New York, 14 May 2018, Lot 18 — $157,159,000 incl. premium; buyer undisclosed [2][7].

At $157,159,000 with fees at Sotheby’s New York on 14 May 2018, Nu couché (sur le côté gauche) set a new house record and ranked among the year’s most expensive works at auction [2][7][14]. Its marketing reflected trophy status: Sotheby’s assigned a $150 million presale estimate—the highest ever placed on a single artwork at the time—while the lot carried a third‑party guarantee and ultimately sold on a single $139 million hammer bid [8][6]. These features illustrate how guarantees can de‑risk consignments and still deliver landmark prices for blue‑chip Modern masters.

Within Modigliani’s market, the result sits just behind the artist’s auction record of $170.4 million for another Nu couché, sold at Christie’s New York in 2015 to Liu Yiqian for the Long Museum [9]. It also far outstrips earlier benchmarks such as the $69 million price for Nu assis sur un divan (La Belle Romaine) in 2010 and the $70.7 million result for the limestone Tête in 2014, underscoring sustained demand across both painting and sculpture by the artist [11][10].

The painting’s market potency is partly tied to its art‑historical stature: it is the largest canvas in Modigliani’s oeuvre and the only horizontal nude by the artist that fully contains the figure within the picture plane—attributes that collectors often prize in establishing “best of type” status [2]. The work’s visibility was also amplified immediately ahead of sale through its prominent loan to Tate Modern’s 2017–18 retrospective, where it served as a signature image [1][12].

While the houses did not identify private parties, reputable press widely reported John Magnier as the 2018 consignor (and the buyer at the 2003 Christie’s sale), with Steve Wynn reported as the 2003 seller; these identifications were not confirmed by the auctioneers [13][12]. Taken together, the painting’s distinguished provenance, museum exhibition history, and the 2018 record price at Sotheby’s position it as a bellwether for top‑tier Modigliani valuations and for the broader market’s appetite for rare, museum‑caliber nudes [2][7][14].