Special Report:Global Financial Crisis
LONDON, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Sotheby's, one of the world's leading auction houses, were overshadowed by the worldwide financial crisis when two sets of Asia Week sales -- in New York in mid-September and Hong Kong in early October -- ended in unsatisfactory results.
In a report released on Friday, Sotheby's said that it is hard to predict the longer term trends in the market for Asian artworks at this point because the sale results in Hong Kong were held during moments of "acute stress and uncertainty."
The period from Sept. 15 to Oct. 10 neatly brackets the Asia Week sales in both New York and Hong Kong.
Although the number of lots offered and the estimates placed upon those lots are a function of longer term trends of supply and demand, which would suggest that short-term shifts in global financial markets would have little effect on the results, "The surrounding events were too great not to have directly influenced the sales," the auction company said.
The dramatic worldwide de-leveraging caused by the end of the credit bubble created a volatile environment surrounding the sales, the report said, adding that it would be "naive to think buying decisions on Asian art and works of art were not made in the context of this economic uncertainty."
The stock market in Hong Kong reached a short term low on Oct. 10 only to fall another 25 percent before reaching its deepest lows on Oct. 27 and it has since recovered but to a level 30 percent lower than before the sales.
"Clearly Hong Kong buyers had a reason to be cautious," the report said.
Nonetheless, Asia Week in New York had a combined sale value of77 million U.S. dollars across nearly a dozen separate sales at Sotheby's and Christie's with nearly 60 percent of the lots on offer at both houses were sold.
At Sotheby's, 26 million dollars of Asian art and works of art were sold, which represents 63 percent of the lots on offer, slightly more than the combined sell-through.
However, the report said that it was the first time in three years that the sell-through at Sotheby's New York Asia Week fell below 70 percent.
In Hong Kong, nearly 113 million dollars in Asian Art and Works of Art were sold at Sotheby's alone, with slightly more than 1,000lots in the combined sales and 64 percent of those lots found buyers for an average lot value of 175,264 dollars.
Even in an uncertain market there will always be works of great or even unexpected value. In Sotheby's New York sales, the most hotly contested lots were a set of "Zitan" armchairs from China's Qing dynasty (early 18th century) that sold for 332,500 dollars above a high estimate of 180,000 dollars while a Japanese gilt-wood seated figure of Yakushi Nyorai (10th-11th century) sold for 290,500 dollars above a high estimate of 120,000 dollars.
In Hong Kong, the emphasis was on works of art with an Imperial connection, classical Chinese painting and Southeast Asian Contemporary art.
The Imperial Qing dynasty painting, Emperor Qianlong's Review of the Grand Parade of Troops sold for a record price of 8.7 million dollars.
The highlight of the week was the estate of Emile Guimet's sale of Imperial seals that brought 49 million dollars with several of the works selling for prices well above the high estimates. The white jade "Qianlong Yubi" seal was sold for 8.1 million dollars, also a record.
Among the works of art, a mallow-shaped Junyao Imperial flowerpot and matching stand from the early Ming Dynasty sold for nearly 950,000 dollars, while a blue-and-white hexagonal vase with a Qianlong seal mark sold for almost 600,000 dollars.
The sale of Fine Chinese Painting was also a success, with Wu Guanzhong's Along the Yangtze River achieved nearly twice the high estimate for just over 2 million dollars.
Some other very strong sales in the category were Wu Changshuo's Blooming Flowers (481,301 U.S. dollars) and Lin Fengmian's Landscape (434,972 U.S. dollars) which both sold for more than two times the high estimate.
And Indonesian painters, like I Nyoman Masriadi who had several works sell for well above the high estimates, were standouts among the works of Contemporary Asian art in Hong Kong with the most valuable of these Indonesian works was The Man from Bantul (The Final Round) which was bought for 1 million dollars, a record for the artist.
Given the unusual circumstances of the Asia Week sales, especially in Hong Kong, it is worth noting that the market seemed to drive in two different directions -- a high premium was paid for the best quality works, particularly works with a connection to the imperial throne and in the world of contemporary art, there was also an emphasis on quality, with real competition for works by younger and less established artists.
Somewhere in between those two extremes lies the burgeoning collecting field of Southeast Asian art where Indonesian painters are beginning to find the market support that their Chinese neighbors saw three or four years ago.
"It should not surprise us to see that two of the collecting categories that saw persistent strength in the face of the financial crisis were the sales of Classical Chinese Painting and the day sale of Chinese contemporary art, as Chinese private buyers dominated the Hong Kong sales," the report said.
