Most expensive collection of paintings from a private estate sold at auction

A record $377 m (£264.4 m) was raised at Sotheby’s in New York, USA, on 4 November 2015, with the auction of 69 artworks from the private collection of American billionaire real-estate developer A. Alfred "Spotty" Taubman, who died in April of that year. The highlight was Portrait de Paulette Jourdain, produced in 1919 by Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani, which sold for $42.8 m.

Despite breaking a record, the total fell some way below expectations, failing to meet a guarantee that Sotheby’s had put forward in order to win the sale from rival auction house Christie’s. As a result, Sotheby’s ended up making a loss. Ironically, Taubman himself was a former chairman of Sotheby’s, but had left under a cloud following a price-fixing scandal.