:Totaling $26,283,700, Christie's series of Asian art sales
achieved the highest total ever in New York. Five sales,
including single-owner sales of Japanese swords and Chinese snuff
bottles, were spread out over three days, March 29-31, and
witnessed intense bidding and buying.
Several new world auction records were set, most notably for a
snuff bottle. An imperial famille rose enameled octagonal snuff
bottle, Qianlong, from the J&J Collection became the most
expensive snuff bottle ever at $665,600.
From the almost esoteric collection of 56 Japanese swords, which
was nearly 100 percent sold and outperformed its presale estimate
by far, to the more accessible fields, such as ceramics and
paintings, all categories showed vigorous activity, according to
Christie's.
Noteworthy was the rise of the price level for modern and
contemporary Indian art, where a total of $3.7 million was
achieved by only 94 paintings, the highest result ever for this
field. The sales of Chinese art demonstrated active
cross-category buying and mainland Chinese clients featured among
the high level buyers.
A full review will appear in a future issue.
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