By Jennifer Glickel
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
UPPER EAST SIDE — The painting "La Belle Romaine" was the bell of Sotheby's Tuesday evening, bringing in a record $68.9 million — the highest price ever for an Amedeo Modigliani painting sold at auction.
The 1917 portrait, officially titled "Nude Sitting on a Divan (The Beautiful Romanian)," went for well above its $40 million asking price and kicked off New York's fall auction season on a high note.
"It was a great night for Modigliani," Simon Shaw, head of Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern Art Department in New York, said in a statement, adding that the painting elicited spirited bidding from at least five collectors.
Other major works that sold at Tuesday's auction include Henri Matisse's 1942 painting "Dancer in an Armchair With a Checkered Floor," which sold for $20.8 million, and Claude Monet's 1917 painting "Water Lily Pond," which went for $24.7 million.
In total, Sotheby's auctioned off $227.5 million worth of Impressionist and modern art on Tuesday.
