Naked ladies reclining on couches and a worried-looking nurse were two subjects that resonated with the world's most deep-pocketed buyers of blue-chip art on Monday night. Works by masters Modigliani, Lichtenstein, Courbet and Balthus brought record prices for the artists at Christie’s second specialized sale of 20th-century art on Nov. 9 in New York.

Amedeo Modigliani’s 1917 “Nu Couche (Reclining Nude)” stretched to an artist record price of $170 million (with fees), the second highest price ever paid at auction for an artwork (Picasso leads at $179 million). In all, "The Artist's Muse," a 34-lot, hybrid sale, brought $491 million total. Ten lots went unsold.

Private Swiss collectors offered the Modigliani, which has never before been on the auction market, and they were guaranteed to get $100 million. A stand-off at the $150 million mark of bidding had the auctioneer laughing when he thought he heard "$170 million," to be told the bidder actually said "one second" while considering a next move. In the end, five battling bidders sent the painting to that price in about 9 minutes, with it hammering down at $152 million, going to $170.4 million with fees.

“She is a woman of incredible elegance and dignity,” Jussi Pylkkanen, Christie’s global president and chief auctioneer, said in a telephone interview with Bloomberg. “It’s the Holy Grail of the artist’s work.”

The artist's previous auction record was for a sculpture, set by a woman's head, "Tete," at $70.9 million last fall.

The previous highest price paid for a Modigliani painting at auction was $68.9 million, set in 2010, at Sotheby’s. In a private sale, Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev reportedly paid $118 million for a work from hedge fund manager Steven A. Cohen's collection.

Another top lot was Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein's "Nurse" which fetched an artist world record auction price at $93.5 million, above an $80 million high estimate. The work showed a blonde nurse's anxious face in close-up, with no text or thought bubbles which usually drive the artist's prices higher.

"Lady Abdy" by Balthus brought another auction record for the artist at $9.9 million.

Gustave Courbet's "Femme Nue Couchee" was another female nude on a couch that brought an artist record price of $15.3 million.

Paul Gauguin's rosewood carved "Thérèse" soared to an auction record for the artist's sculpture at $30 million.