ARTFIXdaily News Feed - Breaking News from the Art World

Hong Kong sales reach record heights

wall Street Journal / December 5th, 2010

Art, jewellery, wine and Chinese antiques were snapped up by eager buyers at a series of sales in Hong Kong last week. Christie's raked in $409 million, a season record total for Hong Kong, the world's third largest auction center following New York and London. About 80% of buyers were from ...

£53 million Chinese vase smashes record

Daily Mail / November 14th, 2010

A dusty antique vase sat on a wobbly bookshelf in a modest home outside of London since the 1930s, until it sold at Bainbridge's auction for an incredible £53 million on Nov. 11. The 16-inch tall 1740 Qianlong dynasty vase with a fish motif is the most expensive piece of Chinese porcelain ...

Ferocious demand for Chinese artworks at Fine Art Asia

Wall Street Journal / October 11th, 2010

The Fine Art Asia fair at the Hong Kong Convention Centre wrapped last week with strong sales concurrent with the record-breaking Sotheby's auctions. Dealers who exhibited Asian antiques are now faced with an inventory dilemna---a supply shortage---while dealers in Western art, who offered up big ...

Imperial vase skyrockets above $32 million at Sotheby's sale

Reuters / October 8th, 2010

Sotheby's seven-day series of auctions in Hong Kong culminated in HK$3.08 billion ($400 million) worth of Asian art, jewelry, wine and watches sold. The total for this biannual sale soundly exceeded the $400 million tally for the auction firm's annual Asian sales of 2009. Imperial treasures ...

Pink diamond, blue chip art heat up Hong Kong sales

Bloomberg / October 6th, 2010

The series of Sotheby’s sales at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre have shown a strong appetite for wine, modern and contemporary art, traditional Chinese paintings, as well as the watches and jewelry in the Asian market. Among the highlights so far this week, a 6.43-carat pink ...

TRIO OF EXHIBITIONS ILLUMINATING POST-WAR JAPANESE CONTEMPORARY CERAMICS AT JOAN B. MIRVISS LTD.

ArtfixDaily / September 29th, 2010

Continuing with her on-going effort to present cutting-edge contemporary Japanese ceramics, Joan B. Mirviss will present three consecutive exhibitions illuminating the world of post-war contemporary ceramics in Japan. Never before has a comparable series of exhibitions of this magnitude been ...

Splurge on modernism: The Mira Hong Kong

ArtfixDaily / September 14th, 2010

Fine Art Asia 2010, from October 3 to 6, as well as the many fall art and antiques auctions, will bring visitors to Hong Kong who may happily discover the city's current hotspot for dinner, drinks, or sweet dreams. The Mira Hong Kong is the latest jewel in the crown of the Design Hotels chain. ...

New $25 million fund buying up Chinese art

St. Louis Business Journal / September 13th, 2010

The St. Louis-based Xiling Fund, LLC. launched four years ago with $17 million earmarked for investment purchases of antique Chinese porcelain. Managed by Bill Carey, president and chief investment officer of Cortland Associates, a Clayton, Missouri, investment firm with $450 million in assets ...

Collectors' Guide: Asian Art Week New York

ArtfixDaily / September 8th, 2010

From Edo Castle folding screens to Indian miniature paintings, snuff bottles to jade carvings, a vast array of Asian art and antiques is on the market this month in New York City. Each Spring and Fall, museum curators, private collectors, dealers, and art enthusiasts descend upon the city for a ...

Qianlong Period bronze censer hammered to over $1 million

ArtfixDaily / June 23rd, 2010

A heated bidding battle sent a two-foot high Qianlong Period gilt bronze censer to a final sale price of $1.38-million (with buyer's premium) on June 22 at Bonhams & Butterfields in San Francisco. An Asian private buyer secured the rare bell-form vesssel in a strong Asian Art auction ...

Sotheby's begins sale of Albemarle House interiors

ArtfixDaily / June 7th, 2010

The contents of the opulent 45-room English country manor owned by vintner and philanthropist Patricia Kluge will be sold by Sotheby's June 8 and 9 at her estate near Charlottesville, Virginia. The collection is rich in Georgian furniture, decorative arts, and paintings, and estimated in excess ...

Bid-less Indonesian auction folds

BBC / May 5th, 2010

No bidders registered for an Indonesian auction of more than 270,000 treasures recovered from a 10th-century Chinese shipwreck. A $16 million deposit was required of bidders. The sale was only announced one week ago. The auction included mostly ceramics as well as some delicate jewel-studded ...

Chinese Imperial jade elephants may stack up to $3 million

Bloomberg / May 5th, 2010

Chinese collectors are expected to bid as much as 2 million pounds ($3.03 million) for a pair of 18th-century green jade elephants which originally adorned a throne room of the Emperor Qianlong. The pair is being offered by the British auction house Woolley & Wallis on May 19 with an ...

Kirman catapults to record $9.5 million

The Economist / April 21st, 2010

Frenchwoman Martine Marie-Pol (1870-1939), Comtesse de Béhague, a noted collector of antiquities and Islamic art, once owned an exquisite Kirman rug. The rare rug descended in her family, returned to the market in the 1980s, and was consigned by a dealer to a Christie's Islamic and Indian sale ...

Auction houses jockey for position in Asia

Straits Times / April 1st, 2010

The battle in Asia among the auction giants is not as much for buyers as it is for the limited supply of quality goods, including classical Chinese art, wine, jewelry, watches, and post-war Western paintings, for which an insatiable demand has arisen in mainland China. In a bold recognition of ...

Weighty provenance, wealthy buyers drive strong Asian art sales

Economist / March 31st, 2010

Chinese jades, imperial porcelain, cloisonné, scholars’ items and furniture were among the most sought-after items at New York's Asian Art Week of events, which ended March 26. Newly affluent mainland Chinese buyers were out in force. In the Chinese works of art category, Christie's had its ...

Jade Buddha, classical painting boost $60 million sale week at Christie's

Paul Fraser Collectibles / March 29th, 2010

A spectacular week of Asian art sales at Christie's in New York, which tallied $60 million, with 1,000 lots offered from March 23 to 26, ended last Friday with the Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art sale. The top lot was a rare large white Jade figure of Buddha, dating from the 18th-19th ...

Asian art sale total triples low estimate

The Epoch Times / March 22nd, 2010

Asia Week in New York began with a robust $3 million auction at Doyle New York on Monday. The pre-sale expectation for the auction was $946,150-$1,375,950. The top lot was a 6-inch tall Chinese jadeite incense burner which sold for over $1 million to a buyer from China. The estimate was modest ...

Asia Week in New York

New York Times / March 18th, 2010

Lacquered luxuries and dragon thrones are among the gems to be showcased next week in New York. Dealers in Asian art and antiques, mostly located on the Upper East Side, will open their doors to the public for a look at five millenniums' worth of treasures. Many participating galleries are ...

China ranks #3 in art market

Luxist / March 17th, 2010

In global auction sales, China trailed New York and London, but eclipsed France last year, according to Artprice. Fine art sales in China reached $830 million, 17.33% of the market worldwide, up from 7.83% a year earlier. Poly International, China Guardian and Beijing Council transacted nearly ...