November saw a number of new entrants to Skate’s Top 1000 (nineteen in total). Particularly surprising were the sales of works at Christie’s five-day sale of Asian Contemporary Art & Chinese 20th Century Art. Given the lack of pre-auction estimates for many of the these works, as well as fact that Christie’s only recently published auction catalogues, Skate’s had not forecasted any new Top 1000 entrants from this sale.
The top-selling work was Fu Baoshi’s Landscape Inspired by Dufu’s Poetic Sentiments, which sold for nearly USD 7.8 million and now occupies the 652nd place in Skate’s Top 1000.
The only entrant to Skate’s Top 1000 from the sale that had been assigned a pre-auction estimate by Christie’s was Ren Renfa’s Five Drunken Kings Return on Horses, which sold for an astounding USD 6 million – almost eight times the auction house’s high estimate of USD 777,751!
Finally, Chu Teh-Chun (Zhu Dequn) just barely made it into the ranking with the sale of Vertige Neigeux for almost USD 5.9 million.
The November 29 sale at Christie’s marked the debut of each of these artists into Skate’s Top 1000 and shows the great resilience, albeit slight correction amid growing maturity, of the Chinese art market.
Click here to view the full December issue of Skate’s Art Industry Investment Letter.
