A triptych painted by Zhang Xiaogang fetched HK$79 million with fees, an auction record for a contemporary Chinese artist, at Sotheby's in Hong Kong. This early work by Zhang, "Forever Lasting Love," more than doubled its estimate.

The April 2 sale, part of 3,600-lot series, netted HK$427.2 million ($54.9 million) on the strength of 105 lots from the collection of multimillionaire Baron Guy Ullens, founder of Beijing’s largest private art museum.

“Prices of Chinese artists will continue to rise,” collector Gu Zhenqing said in an interview with Bloomberg. “I’m confident that the price of a work by a Chinese artist will exceed the 100 million yuan ($15.3 million) mark this year. That could be Zhang Xiaogang, Zeng Fanzhi or someone else.”