Billionaire John Magnier is selling an Amedeo Modigliani nude estimated at $150m, the most for any work of art at auction this season, according to people familiar with the matter.
The 1917"Nu couche (sur le cote gauche)" depicts a reclining female nude from behind, looking calmly over her shoulder at the viewer.
The pose is almost identical to "La Grande Odalisque" by Ingres from a century earlier.
Bloomberg said the piece, previously owned by casino mogul Steve Wynn, will be the star lot of Sotheby's Impressionist and modern art sale on May 14 in New York.
John Magnier bought the painting for $26.9m at Christie’s in 2003 when it was sold by Wynn, said people familiar with the matter.
Sotheby's and Magnier declined to comment on the identity of the seller.
Magnier owns Coolmore Stud, the world's biggest breeder of thoroughbred racehorses and his wife Susan co-owns a promising 3-year-old colt, fittingly named Amedeo Modigliani.
With farms in Ireland, Australia and the US, Coolmore and its training facility, Ballydoyle, have produced hundreds of winners of all the world's major races.
The operation also owns about 48 stallions, whose stud fees range from $7,500 to $125,000.
Bloomberg said the May auction season is poised to be the biggest on record, driven by Christie's offering a trove of masterpieces from the estate of David Rockefeller.
The top end of the art market has been soaring, with global art sales ringing up $63.7 billion in 2017, a 12% increase from a year earlier.
Leonardo da Vinci’s "Salvator Mundi" fetched $450.3m in November, the most expensive work ever sold.
"This is among the greatest modern paintings in private hands," Simon Shaw, Sotheby's co-head of Impressionist and modern art, said of the Modigliani.
