Over in New York, Amedeo Modigliani's painting is making headlines. On the first day of Spring auctions, the much-hyped about sale of one of his masterpieces, "Nu Couche" has surpassed its pre-sale estimate, bringing the total price of his works to $150 million. Qi Jie has more.

This 1917 work sold for a hammer price of $139 million. The final price came short of another Modigliani nude sold at Christie's in 2015 for over $170 million to Chinese billionaire Liu Yiqian.

The two sales have made the artist "quite extraordinary" within the art market, being the only artist to have sold two works for over $150 million at auction.

SIMON SHAW, CO-HEAD SOTHEBY'S WORLDWIDE IMPRESSIONIST & MODERN ART "He's an artist who plowed his own furrow. He didn't follow trends when he painted this work in 1917. That was very different to what the cubists and Picasso, other artists who were working alongside him were doing. But now we recognize the things that he introduced in his art perhaps quite nuanced but are actually tremendously important. So he's been reappraised."

A Claude Monet 1896 painting "Matinee sure la Seine" sold to a phone buyer for more than $20 million. The sale also offered numerous Picasso works from throughout his entire career, with a small 1932 painting of Marie-Therese selling for the highest price of about $37 million.

According to Sotheby's, the 45 lots sold for a combined over $318 million, which is an 83% increase from last year's sale. QIJIE, CGTN.