A compelling nude painted by Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) garnered $68.96 million at Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern Art evening sale on Tuesday. This first sale in the series of auctions in New York brought in $227 million, soundly within the $195 million to $266 million pre-sale estimate, largely due to Modigliani. 

Buyers remain focused on increasingly rare-to-market signature works by big name artists.

Fifteen lots, about twenty-five percent of the 61 offerings, passed, including works by Picasso, Bonnard, Degas, Picabia, Miro, Seurat, Henry Moore, and Matisse. 

After a lull, lively bidding ensued for Modigliani’s Nu Assis sur un Divan (La Belle Romaine) or Nude Seated On A Divan, from his famous 1917 series of nudes, which ultimately went to a telephone buyer for $68 million. The result far exceeded its pre-sale expectation of $40 million and trounced the artist's previous auction record of $53 million for a limestone bust set in June.

From an European collection, La Belle Romaine previously sold for the once-stunning price of $16.77 million in 1999.

Later, Modigliani's Jeanne Hébuterne (au chapeau) fetched $19,122,500, more than doubling its low estimate of $9 million.