Let's get into it.
We're starting this deep dive in 2015 and I want you to picture this.
We're in the middle of a massive, high-stakes New York art auction.
The energy in that room must have been electric.
Absolutely.
And a deal happens that is so staggering, so brazen really,
that it didn't just break a record,
it sort of encapsulated the entire philosophy of a new kind of global wealth.
Right, you're talking about Liu Yiqian.
I am.
Liu Yiqian, the property magnate who famously started his career as a taxi driver in Shanghai.
And the object of his desire is Amedeo Modigliani's incredible 1917 painting, Nu couché.
A truly major modernist work.
And the painting itself of course had an estimated value, but what happened next just shattered all expectations.
It did.
Liu Yiqian pays 170 million dollars for it.
170 million.
At the time, that's the second highest price ever paid for a piece of art at auction.
It instantly puts him on the global map.
But the price isn't even the most memorable part of the story.