Liu Yiqian, a Chinese billionaire collector, is known for shelling out millions in order to acquire Chinese artworks, but he also has an eye for western masterpieces. Liu Yiqian and his wife Wang Wei bought Amedeo Modigliani's 1917 painting of a reclining nude "Nu Couche" for as much as $170.4 million - the second highest auction price ever paid for artifact after a Picasso painting sold at Christie's for $179.4 million in May, Forbes reported.

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The painting, which portrays a nude dark-haired woman lying down on a red couch, was initially targeted to sell for around $100 million.

According to Daily Mail, the artwork, one of his biggest, hit the sweet spot for being 'rare, quality and beauty all represented in the same art', Christie's said. Its astronomical cost makes Modigliani the creator of the second-most expensive artifact ever to be sold. Only Picasso's Women of Algiers, which was brought in May for around £118 million, has been sold for more.

Despite the immense sums commanded by Modigliani now, he remains a far more elusive figure than the likes of Picasso or Vincent van Gogh. But the short, unstable life of the Italian painter and sculptor - fuelled by alcoholism, drug-taking, womanizing and violence - is just as fascinating as their troubled histories.

Born into a bourgeois family in a down-at-heel society in the year 1884, Modigliani was brought up in the port city of Livorno in Italy. His family were Sephardic Jews, and the business of money-lending practiced by his father Flaminio had gone bust just before Amedeo was born.

Until his early 20s, Modigliani studied and painted in his native Italy. But as with the many other aspiring artists at the time, there was only one place to head for - Paris. He arrived there in 1906, with his corduroy jacket, swarthy good looks, broad-brimmed hat, and red scarf. He looked more of a confident dandy than shabby Bohemian.

Liu has made news before with large purchases of rare art and objects, including the well-known Ming Dynasty "Chicken Cup," an intricate teacup that highlighted a finely drawn rooster. Liu swiped his American Express Centurion card 24 times to pay $36 million for the cup, reported Trib Live.

Considered one of Modigliani's best known works, the 1917-18 painting nearly created a scandal when it was first exhibited in Paris.

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