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
rich who are driving the market. Traditional western preferences were for older and more subtle workm
of aesthetic and academic values. Now, Chinese buyers are investing most in later works, particularly in
porcelain made for the Emperor Qianlong, such as the record £53 million vase sold at Bainbridge auctio
month, which has been described as ‘gaudy’ and ‘flamboyant’ by critics. Chinese collector and TV pers
Weidu said: “Really it is pretty, but that’s all.” The Emperor Qianlong, who reigned from 1736 to 1795,
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 Q
gourd shaped vase with an imperial seal under its base, denoting its use in the emperor’s palace, sold for
had been bought in 1971 for £1,680 ($4,200) by a New York based Chinese dealer who could never sell
Shanghai born Hong Kong collector, Alice Cheng, said: “As long as you like something, even if it’s exp
it.” According to the Hurun Report, a rich list compiled by Shanghai based accountant, Rupert Hoogew
estimated 875,000 millionaires and 110 billionaires in China, the majority of whom are aged in their 30
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
London in 2005 for a beautiful but less ornate 14th century blue and white porcelain jar. The jar was bou
dealer, Giuseppe Eskenazi for Bruno Eberli, a Swiss-born financier based in New York. Eskenazi says t
traditional, scholarly taste for earlier Song dynasty (11-13th century AD) ceramics and Ming (14th — 1
porcelain, on which so many western collections were founded, has been pushed aside over the last 2 or
“Western and Japanese collectors liked imperial porcelain,” he says” but not the later more showy exam
didn’t excite them.” Celebrating his 50th year in business, he has just sold an 18th century Qing dynasty
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he was asking $25 million to a Chinese buyer. “It would have been much less three or four years ago,” h
interest I had was all Chinese, and I priced it accordingly.” For auctions outside China, repatriation is an
motive, as it was during the early surges of the Russian and Middle Eastern art markets. The Bainbridge
to have come from Old Summer Palace that was looted by French and British troops during second Opi
providing added incentive to return it to China. Some important works are being donated by wealthy co
Alice Cheng, to Chinese museums. In addition, John Axford of Woolley & Wallis, which last week sold
white jade carving of a deer for £3.8 million to a collector in Hangzhou, believes the Chinese are compa
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 m
jade imperial seal which had been bought in London in 1997 for £25,300 ($42,600) sold for $16 million
London this month, a yellow jade censer from the Qianlong dynasty, estimated at £3,000 to £5,000, sold
45 times the higher estimate.
Western collectors are getting priced out of the top of the market, but are still active elsewhere, says Esk
current exhibition, he has sold a 6th century limestone carving of an asparas, or heavenly being, for $2 m
based collector.
Sotheby’s Hong Kong sales in October of everything from wine and watches to contemporary Asian art
estimates to make almost $400 million – a record for such a series in Hong Kong. Next week, Christie’s
attempting to emulate that figure with a similar series that is estimated to fetch $220 million. In the curr
must be just an educated guess.