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oil on canvas , painted in 1917 Sotheby's, New York. A world record price for Modigliani who had begun his superb series of nudes, generally acclaimed as his greatest accomplishments, in 1916. The artist had painted nudes as early as 1908 but it was after he abandoned sculpture in 1914 that he developed the style of painting so characteristically his own, defining the ideal of femininity in a sequence of masterpieces of which “Nu Assis sur un Divan”, better known as “La Belle Romaine” is a compelling example. The erotic appeal of the present work is heightened by the model's pose. Unlike the majority of other nudes he painted after 1914 the sitter provocatively conceals her sex by crossing her legs. This work was notably removed in 1917 by police from the shop window of the Berthe Weill gallery in Paris probably because this non-naturalistic nude exuded far more sexuality than the anatomically very correct nudes produced, say, by the celebrated academician Bouguereau. This work, sold at the Georges Renand sale in Paris for 41 million FF ($ 6,8 million) in November 1987, carried a pre-sale estimate of $ 12 to 16 million. |
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