Chinese Qing treasures set records

A batch of rare Chinese imperial treasures including an emperor's seal and a scroll painting bucked weak sentiment in the Chinese art market, setting record prices in a Sotheby's Hong Kong sale.

With global credit markets frozen up amid the financial and banking turmoil, Sotheby's biannual sales of Asian art in Hong Kong have been hit by weak sales in traditionally hot categories of artwork including contemporary Chinese paintings, 20th century Chinese art and jewellery.

Demand, however, for top-flight, historical Chinese objets d'art remained strong in Sotheby's "Legacies of Imperial Power" sale, including a batch of seals from the court of the Qing dynasty Qianlong emperor.

The masterpiece of the collection, a massive jade seal of two coiled dragons carved out of a square chunk of "mutton fat" white jade and etched with the four Chinese characters "Qianlong yubi" (in the Imperial hand of Qianlong) fetched HK$63.4 million (€6 million) after spirited bidding in the half-full auction hall -- a world record for any Chinese imperial white jade seal.

Unlike other Sotheby's auctions over the past week which were peppered with unsold lots, all eight jade seals from the estate of French industrialist Emile Guimet found buyers in a rare "white glove" sale, as such clean sheets are known in the trade.

Another Qing treasure, a 15-metre-long Qianlong military handscroll the "Dayue Tu" -- painted with 16,000 miniature figures including the emperor himself on a white stallion in a "Grand Parade" of troops -- sold for HK$67.86 million (€6.4 million), a world record for any Qing imperial painting, but well below its pre-sale estimate of over $HK80 million.

Nicolas Chow, Sotheby's global head Chinese ceramics and works of art said the results "illustrate the growing interest in unique historical works of art and are a testament to the demand for objects which reflect ... the Chinese imperial past."

But in Sotheby's marquee autumn evening sale of Asian contemporary art over the weekend, a key twice-yearly barometer of market sentiment among the world's top collectors, 19 of 47 prominent works went unsold and others barely hit low estimates.

Demand was also weak for 20th century Chinese artwork, with only 39 of 110 lots sold given weak demand, high valuations and narrow participation by buyers outside of key greater China markets like China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

"When it comes to certain high value pictures maybe our sellers have been a little over-optimistic with estimates and certainly in a category which has gone up so many times in the last few years, that we will see some levelling off. It is only normal," Patti Wong, Sotheby's Asia Chairman told Reuters.

Wong added however that "bullish sentiment" was apparent in other categories like lesser-priced Southeast Asian and fine classical Chinese paintings with some record-breaking results.

"Collectors are increasingly being selective and there's a strong migration into value," Wong added.

Sotheby's jewellery sales were also sluggish with over half, or 162 of 321 items failing to find buyers including a heavily marketed 102.56-carat vivid yellow diamond necklace.