Christie’s latest Hong Kong auction has raised $463 million, beating estimates for a slew of high-end goods and capping a week of eye-popping sales fuelled by buyers in booming mainland China.
The auction giant said its six-day spring sale of items from rare wine to Imperial Chinese ceramics raised HK$3.6 billion ($463 million), with HK$4 billion raised at auctions in Hong Kong and mainland China in the first half of the year. That was Christie’s richest season total in Asia and 68 per cent higher than last year, it said, underscoring Hong Kong’s rise as an global auction hub.
Chinese art prices have rocketed in recent years, fuelled by the country’s economic boom and a steady demand from rich Asian collectors, especially mainland Chinese buyers.
“These results indicate the continued growth in the breadth and depth of collecting interest, and reaffirm Hong Kong as a leading centre in the global art market,” the firm said in a statement.
Before the sales kicked off, Christie’s had estimated it would raise about HK$2.4 billion, later saying that “intensive bidding resulted in prices going well over their estimates across all categories”.
The sales had more than 2,700 lots on offer, including a rare Patek Philippe watch and Chinese contemporary art, as well as a wine auction featuring pricey bottles of Chateau Latour.
The sale total might have been even higher if an 18th-century Chinese ceramic vase had fetched its pre-sale reserve price of HK$240 million, but bidding fizzled around HK$190 million and it went unsold.
In April, rival Sotheby’s saw its much-anticipated sale of imperial Chinese porcelain flop in Hong Kong, with many prized lots failing to sell.
The sale of the Meiyintang Collection – 77 pieces of porcelain gathered over half a century by a European collector – was expected to fetch up to HK$1.07 billion but the collection went for just HK$399 million.
Still, both auction houses are betting big on Asia with Hong Kong, a former British colony, drawing a string of record sales. It is now the world’s third-largest auction centre after New York and London.
“The growth of the art market in Asia is greater than anywhere in the world,” said Francois Curiel, president of Christie’s Asia.
Sotheby’s on Tuesday sold a collection of 25 works by Chang Dai-chien, one of China’s leading 20th century artists, for a whopping HK$680 million in just over an hour of bidding.
The top lot, Lotus and Mandarin Ducks, sold for HK$191 million to a telephone bidder, against a pre-sale estimate of HK$20 million, setting an auction record for the artist, Sotheby’s said.