Art is never too old or never too young, perhaps for it being embedded ever so much in the ‘now.’ Perhaps, that is why it never fades. Perhaps, that is why it never grows out of anyone’s favour. The perceptibility for everyone changes and can never be the same for any intrepid buyer. So when it comes to someone like a true legend of the craft- Amedeo Modigliani- it can be said, that art only enriched itself with this suave and one of a kind stylist.
Of late, there’s been a newfound passion and reverence of sorts regarding one of art world’s best ever, Amedeo Modigliani. He was considered to be a true master of the nudes and someone who buried himself in the realm of making outstanding sculptures.
For someone who made so many famous, ever-fresh artworks, among them being Head of a woman with a hat, Portrait of Juan girls, Portrait of Jean Cocteau- one choicest art piece, Nu couche is generating a lot of news and vibe. So what exactly Nu couche and why is it so famous and generating the buzz, so much so that it turned into a mega buck-spinning object at the latest auction conducted a few days ago?
Well, apparently, Modigliani, among the painters renowned for unfurling some masterly nude creations, came up with an epic when he conjured arguably a famous masterpiece in Nu couche. This has often been pitted alongside the masterly creations of Picasso where the global world of art stands.
The Nu couche is actually a work emphasising a pretty woman, sitting all nude, the naked female figure besotted in a repose. This has been considered a classic by Modigliani for the longest time and underwent a celebrated auction recently. Why it’s been creating a great deal of buzz is simply for the mega-sums it generated in the auction. This Modigliani epic is considered to be among the most expensive bids that were ever sold in any art auction around the world.
In fetching an astronomical $157.2 million, Nu couche puts thrust in the artistic wonder of a truly one of a kind force known as Modigliani. On a prim and fancy and quintessentially fabulous Sotheby’s New York Monday evening, the only one word that was common regardless of those in attendance was Modigliani. Celebrated expressions marked with exclamations mark such as “Oh my”, were the buzzwords as Nu couche went under the hammer.
This 1917 art masterpiece puts Modigliani in a distinct bracket of mega-successful artists whose creations are to this day, leading to rip-roaring reactions from around the world. But to take nothing away from this enigmatic and now, costly nude, the highest record ever set by a painter’s nude work belongs to the irrepressible Leonardo da Vinci, among the finest-ever compatriots of the Italian Modigliani.
A several hundred years ago, the legendary artist Leonardo da Vinci created his most- legendary epic, Salvator Mundi, that raked in a whopping $450 million at an auction earlier. Interestingly, ahead of the auction of the said art-piece, the iconic auctioneering brand, a mega-successful of its own kind, Sotheby’s had predicted a sale of around $150 million.
But on account of the massive bids that Modigliani’s artwork generated, it could be said, it has once again proven the central tenet or philosophy to great art: that it never dies out or wanes out in appeal. And that is not all there is.
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Sold back in 2003, Nu couche went for nearly six times the price that it had generated back in the day. And this isn’t the first time that Sotheby’s have orchestrated such a premier artsy event. At an auction in 2010, Sotheby’s convened over an auction for a similar show, albeit one celebrating another fantastic nude art piece, “Nude sitting over a Divan” that went for a mega $69 million.
In the globally acclaimed realm of art, where buyers are often flimsy about spending every single buck-and understandably so- such precise successes that go on to fetch mega bucks justify the logic of the effort spent by some timeless names in the spectre.