ART

Modigliani Painting Sets Auction Record: A Japanese gallery has set a world auction record in sterling by purchasing a work by Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani for the equivalent of $7.89 million, Sotheby’s said. The Fujii Gallery paid 5,060,000 in London for “Fillette au Tablier Noir,� a painting of a girl in a black dress. The previous highest auction price for Modigliani was 4.4 million in March, 1988, then the equivalent of $7.9 million against a stronger dollar. The sale of “Fillette au Tablier Noir� was part of an auction of Impressionist and modern paintings and sculpture that together brought in $104 million. Twenty-two works, including ones by Claude Monet and Paul Gauguin, each fetched more than $1.56 million.