HONG KONG.- C.K. Cheung, Head of Chinese Paintings Department, Sotheby's, said, “The market for fine Chinese paintings goes from strength to strength at Sotheby’s. Leveraging our unrivalled global network to source exceptional works from important private collections in America, Europe and Asia, as well as adhering to our strategy of carefully curating a sale that offers desirable paintings at attractive estimates, we have achieved outstanding results today, with a total of HK$467 million / US$60 million, far surpassing our 40th Anniversary Autumn 2013 sale total.

Sotheby’s was the first international auction house to offer Chinese Paintings at auction in Asia and our unequalled experience allows us to be market-makers in the field, as collectors trust our strategy will deliver excellent results for them.

For example, the top lot of the day, Zhang Daqian’s La Beauté Antique, represents the pinnacle of the artist’s gongbi brushwork and occupies a very significant place in his career as he handpicked it for his first solo exhibition in the West. Consigned from a North American collection, the price of HK$66.2 million we fetched this evening was fourteen times what the collector paid for it when he purchased it at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in 2001^, showing how far the market has come. Similarly, Fu Baoshi’s Lofty Terrace of Mount Huang, which returns to Asia for the first time in over 60 years, having previously been in the Collection of a French Diplomat who acquired it in China, more than tripled its high estimate. Other notable prices were fetched for works by Yu Fei’an, especially the cover lot – Mandarin Ducks in the Pond – which sold for more than eight times its high estimate.”