NEW YORK.- At $26,283,700, this series of Asian Art sales achieved the highest total ever in New York. Five sales, including single owner sales of Japanese swords and Chinese snuff bottles, were spread out over three days and witnessed intense bidding and buying. From the almost esoteric collection of 56 Japanese swords which was nearly 100% sold and outperformed its pre-sale estimate by far, to the more accessible fields such as ceramics and paintings, all categories showed vigorous activity. Noteworthy was the rise of the price level for modern and contemporary Indian art where a total of $3.7 million was achieved by only 94 paintings, the highest result ever for this field. The sales of Chinese art demonstrated active cross-category buying and Mainland Chinese clients featured among the high level buyers. Along the way, several new world auction records were set, most notably for a snuff bottle at $665,600, paid for an Imperial famille rose enameled octagonal snuff bottle, Qianlong, from the J&J Collection.