Amedeo Modigliani, Nu couché (sur le côté gauche) (1917), sold for $157.2m Courtesy of Sotheby's

Helena Newman, worldwide co-head of Impressionist and Modern art for Sotheby's, presides over bidding for Monet's Matinée sur la Seine (1896) in the 14 May sale in New YorkCourtesy of Sotheby's

Kicking off New York’s third straight market week, after the Frieze and Tefaf fairs and Christie’s Rockefeller extravaganza, Sotheby’s evening sale of Impressionist and Modern art on 14 May rang up $318.3m. Although that number appears to nearly double last year’s take of $173.8m, and even improve on November’s $269.7m result, nearly half was thanks to a single work: Amedeo Modigliani’s Nu couché (sur le côté gauche) (1917), which contributed $157.2m with fees.

With the auction record for a Modigliani nude standing at $170.4m, there was reason to believe that this example—some deemed it more commercially viable, given the subject’s more-demure pose; others said less desirable for being less explicit—could incite a bidding war. When lot 18, tagged with an estimate “in excess of $150m”, rolled around, two agonising minutes passed during which Patti Wong, chairman of Sotheby’s Asia, looked to be on the verge of jumping in. But there was ultimately no advance on the $139m offered by a buyer in the auction house had lined up ahead of the sale with an irrevocable bid. The painting was immediately crowned the most expensive in the firm’s 274-year history by Helena Newman, the auctioneer and president of Sotheby's Europe and worldwide co-head of the Impressionist and Modern department.