Picasso’s “Hommes Assis” sells for 9.6 million RMB ($1.57 million) at Christie’s first mainland China auction.
SHANGHAI — Gathered beneath a cloud of crystals in the ballroom of the Jing’an Shangri-La Hotel, bidders spent 154 million RMB ($25 million) at Christie’s first independent auction in mainland China.
“It was a perfect storm of positivity,” said Christie’s CEO Steven P. Murphy. “The interest and the energy was so strong that we made four world records for artists.”
Christie’s only received a license to operate independently in China in March this year, and drew on many of its departments to pull together last night’s gala auction. (Murphy explained earlier this week that future China auctions will be delineated by department.)
Auctioneer Jin Ling switched back and forth from Mandarin to English, juggling bids from 23 people online, 56 phone bidders, and another 112 people in the room. The most expensive item sold was a ruby and diamond “butterfly” necklace, which went for 18 million RMB ($2,940,498), the low end of its estimate.
Wines and watches also largely sold within estimated ranges, with modern and contemporary art garnering some of the more heated bidding. Indonesian painter Inyoman Masriadi’s “Fatman” (2000) saw aggressive bidding from the phones, eventually going for 3.8 million RMB, well over the estimate of 1.3-1.6 million RMB ($620,771).
Local interest zeroed in on Pablo Picasso ’s “Hommes Assis” (1969), with five Chinese bidders in the hall pushing the price up to 9.6 million RMB ($1,568,265), well above the estimate of 4.5-6.2 million. “Hommes Assis” is the first Picasso ever to be sold at auction in China.
The Picasso was not the most expensive painting sold at the event however. That honor went to Cai Guo-Qiang’s gunpowder painting “Homeland,” which was created just a day earlier. The work, a view of Cai’s home town of Quanzhou, Fujian province, sold to Chen Jiaquan, chairman of the Shanghai Haosheng Investment Group and president of the Quanzhou Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, for 15 million RMB ($2,450,415).
Money from the sale will go towards the Frank Gehry-designed art museum Cai is establishing in Quanzhou.
“This is an excellent painting; it’s very artistic, and it’s very difficult to achieve such high quality,” Chen Jiaquan told BLOUIN ARTINFO China. “There’s a possibility that I’ll donate it to the museum.”
The item that most exceeded estimates in percentage terms was a jadeite buddha. When frenzied bidding finally ceased at 5.5 million RMB ($898,485), the stone had exceeded its low estimate 11 times over. The piece, whose creator is not credited, was made within the past 10 years.
Head of jewelry Vickie Sek attributed interest in the buddha to the quality of the jadeite, and a “very attractive price offered by a private collector.”
According to Christie’s, 96 percent of the total offerings by value were purchased. Just one item remained unsold: Giorgio Morandi’s 1967 painting “Natura Morta” passed at 5 million RMB ($816,805), short of its low estimate of 5.5 million ($898,485).
“Morandi is an artist who in the past four years has had amazing success in China,” said Giovanna Bertazzoni, head of impressionist and modern art at Christie’s. This time, she said, “clearly Picasso was the name.”
Additional reporting by Wang Yiquan. N.B. Prices listed do not include buyer’s premium.
This article originally appeared in ArtInfo.