Artprice: the 2010 Art Market Annual Report - China Winner of the Past Decade

"Over the last 10 years, China jumped from ninth place to first place in 2010, becoming the world's largest auction marketplace for Fine Art and overtaking the United States and the UK, the grand masters of the market since the 1950s. ..." [Read Full Article]

Published By: PR Newswire
On: 04/05/11
Website: http://www.prnewswire.com/

 

Looking for original art? Visit Artistically Connected today!

$10 Million Painting Boosts Chinese Contemporary Market

"In a $54.8 million sale of contemporary Chinese art from the collection of Belgian collector Baron Guy Ullens, a packed auction room bid ferociously for 106 works acquired over decades by the now retired tycoon. The star lot was Zhang's early 1988 work ..." [Read Full Article]

Published By: Reuters
On: 04/05/11
Website: http://www.reuters.com/

 

Looking for original art? Visit Artistically Connected today!

Triptych Sets Chinese Art Record

"A three-panel oil painting by artist Zhang Xiaogang has sold for 79m Hong Kong dollars (£6.3m) - a record auction price for Chinese contemporary art. The 1988 work, Forever Lasting Love, shows half-naked figures in an arid landscape surrounded by ..." [Read Full Article]

Published By: BBC News
On: 04/04/11
Website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/

 

Looking for original art? Visit Artistically Connected today!

China's New History Museum Writes Its Own History

"China spent more than a decade and nearly $400 million to remake the National Museum into a leading showcase of history and culture, a monument to its rising power no less grand -- it is designed to be the world's largest museum under one roof -- and more enduring than the Olympic Games it hosted in 2008. But one tradition has remained firmly in place: China will not confront its own history." [Read Full Article]

Published By: The New York Times
On: 04/04/11
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/

 

Looking for original art? Visit Artistically Connected Today!

Chinese Art Prices Soar, Signalling A Shift In Taste

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Image via Wikipedia"][/caption]

Art sales: the great haul of China

China's young millionaires have driven this new trend in Asian porcelain sales, says Colin Gleadell.

The phenomenal prices being paid for Chinese works of art provides a fascinating insight into the tastes of China’s new rich who are driving the market. Traditional western preferences were for older and more subtle workmanship, a fusion of aesthetic and academic values. Now, Chinese buyers are investing most in later works, particularly in 18th century porcelain made for the Emperor Qianlong, such as the record £53 million vase sold at Bainbridge auctions in Ruislip this month, which has been described as ‘gaudy’ and ‘flamboyant’ by critics. Chinese collector and TV personality, Ma Weidu said: “Really it is pretty, but that’s all.” The Emperor Qianlong, who reigned from 1736 to 1795, is seen as the last great Emperor of China, and his style is back in fashion with a vengeance.

The previous record for a Chinese work of art was set last month by Sotheby’s in Hong Kong when a Qianlong double gourd shaped vase with an imperial seal under its base, denoting its use in the emperor’s palace, sold for $32.4 million. It had been bought in 1971 for £1,680 ($4,200) by a New York based Chinese dealer who could never sell it. The buyer, Shanghai born Hong Kong collector, Alice Cheng, said: “As long as you like something, even if it’s expensive it’s worth it.” According to the Hurun Report, a rich list compiled by Shanghai based accountant, Rupert Hoogewerf, there are an estimated 875,000 millionaires and 110 billionaires in China, the majority of whom are aged in their 30’s and 40’s. Typically, says the report, they will own three houses, and spend their money on cars, watches and art.

Before last month, the record for a Chinese work of art was the £15.7 million ($28 million dollars) paid at Christie’s in London in 2005 for a beautiful but less ornate 14th century blue and white porcelain jar. The jar was bought by London dealer, Giuseppe Eskenazi for Bruno Eberli, a Swiss-born financier based in New York. Eskenazi says that the traditional, scholarly taste for earlier Song dynasty (11-13th century AD) ceramics and Ming (14th — 17th century AD) porcelain, on which so many western collections were founded, has been pushed aside over the last 2 or 3 years.

“Western and Japanese collectors liked imperial porcelain,” he says” but not the later more showy examples, which didn’t excite them.” Celebrating his 50th year in business, he has just sold an 18th century Qing dynasty vase for which he was asking $25 million to a Chinese buyer. “It would have been much less three or four years ago,” he says. “The interest I had was all Chinese, and I priced it accordingly.” For auctions outside China, repatriation is an important motive, as it was during the early surges of the Russian and Middle Eastern art markets. The Bainbridge vase is believed to have come from Old Summer Palace that was looted by French and British troops during second Opium War in 1860, providing added incentive to return it to China. Some important works are being donated by wealthy collectors, such as Alice Cheng, to Chinese museums. In addition, John Axford of Woolley & Wallis, which last week sold an 18th century white jade carving of a deer for £3.8 million to a collector in Hangzhou, believes the Chinese are comparing the price of their antiques with Western modern art in the belief that it should be worth as much or more.

The rate of price increases is leaving even Andy Warhol in the shade. At Sotheby’s in Hong Kong last month a Qianlong jade imperial seal which had been bought in London in 1997 for £25,300 ($42,600) sold for $16 million. At Sotheby’s in London this month, a yellow jade censer from the Qianlong dynasty, estimated at £3,000 to £5,000, sold for £313,250, or 45 times the higher estimate.

Western collectors are getting priced out of the top of the market, but are still active elsewhere, says Eskenazi. From his current exhibition, he has sold a 6th century limestone carving of an asparas, or heavenly being, for $2 million to a UK based collector.

Sotheby’s Hong Kong sales in October of everything from wine and watches to contemporary Asian art, doubled estimates to make almost $400 million - a record for such a series in Hong Kong. Next week, Christie’s will be attempting to emulate that figure with a similar series that is estimated to fetch $220 million. In the current climate, that must be just an educated guess.

This article is from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/artsales/8152180/Art-sales-the-great-haul-of-China.html

Related Articles

• Inherited Chinese vase nabs $84M at auction (cbc.ca)