Modigliani Sold For £16.3m

A Modigliani portrait of his muse Jeanne Hebuterne was sold for £16.3 million ($41 million) at a London auction of impressionist and modern art yesterday. The 1919 portrait of his common-law wife, entitled Jeanne Hebuterne (au chapeau), was painted a year before the death of the Italian painter and sculptor Amadeo Modigliani. Edgar Degas's 1895 La Sortie du Bain, an 1895 pastel of a woman bathing, her face hidden by a raised arm, which once belonged to Bob Guccione, founder of the soft-core Penthouse magazine, was sold for £6.78 million ($17 million) at the same art auction. During the sale, which ends tomorrow, the London auction house Sotheby's hopes to pull in some £115 million ($289.6 million). The art auction prices come amid some record-busting art sales in recent days, signs of a bubbling market, notably for 20th century art. Irish Art