11 most expensive Chinese art pieces sold at auction in the past 10 years

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The largest auctions have long been dominated by European masterpieces - from paintings by old masters to pop art. However, over the past decade, there has been a significant shift around the world: works of art from other cultures appear more and more often, using great demand. One of the biggest leaps in the market was Chinese art, which surpassed even some European art in its auction price.

The country's first art auction house, China Guardian, was founded in 1993, soon followed by the state-owned China Poly Group in 1999, which has since become the world's third largest auction house. Over the past decade, this success has continued to flourish and Chinese art has been auctioned off at fabulous prices.

The history of Chinese art has gone through many different stages, often influenced by the dynastic shifts of the Empire. For this reason, some art styles are often named after the dynasty in which they were made, such as the Ming vase or the Tang horse. This article will focus on eleven of the most expensive Chinese masterpieces sold at auctions over the past ten years.

1. Zhao Mengfu

Born in 1254, Zhao Mengfu was a scholar, painter and calligrapher of the Yuan Dynasty, although he himself came from the imperial family of the earlier Song Dynasty. It is believed that his bold brushwork sparked a revolution in painting that eventually led to the emergence of the modern Chinese landscape. In addition to his beautiful paintings, which often depict horses, Zhao practiced calligraphy in a variety of styles, significantly influencing the methods used during the Ming and Qing dynasties.

The beauty of his writing is evident in the two letters he sent to his brothers at the turn of the 14th century. His words, which speak of both melancholy and brotherly affection, are written as gracefully as in meaning. The intimate and beautiful nature of these well-preserved documents ensured a high price when they were put up for sale by the China Guardian in 2019, with the winning bidder paying more than $ 38 million for this piece of art.

2. Pan Tianshou

An artist and art critic of the twentieth century, Pan Tianshou developed his artistic skills as a boy, copying illustrations he found in his favorite books. During his school years, he practiced calligraphy, painting and stamp carvings, making small creations for his friends and peers. After completing his formal education, he devoted his life entirely to art, creating many works of his own, as well as teaching the subject in a number of schools and universities. Unfortunately, the Cultural Revolution came at the height of Pan's career, with years of public humiliation and denial followed by accusations of espionage, after which he faced increased persecution and eventually died in hospital in 1971.

Pan's paintings pay homage to the Confucian, Buddhist and Taoist concepts that have always inspired early Chinese art, but also contain small innovations that make his work completely unique. He took a traditional landscape and added finer details rarely seen in earlier paintings, and also chose to depict steep landscapes over smooth, hilly vistas. Pan was even known for using his fingers to add texture to his work. All of these techniques can be found in The View from the Top, which depicts a rocky mountain, which was sold in 2018 for approximately forty-one million dollars.

3. Imperial embroidered silk tank

Originating from Tibet, thangi (thangi) are paintings on fabric such as cotton or silk that usually depict a Buddhist deity, scene, or mandala. Due to their subtle nature, it is rare for a tanka to retain its original appearance for a long time. And yet, there are artworks that are considered the greatest textile treasures in the world.

Wicker thangka dates back to the early Ming Dynasty, when such items were sent to Tibetan monasteries, religious and secular leaders as diplomatic gifts. The tank in question depicts the fierce deity Rakta Yamari, embracing his Vajravetali and triumphantly standing on the body of Yama, the Lord of Death. These figures are surrounded by a wealth of symbolic and aesthetic details, all of which are exquisitely embroidered with the greatest skill. The beautiful tank was sold at Christie's in Hong Kong in 2014 for a whopping $ 44 million.

4. Chen Rong

Born in 1200, Chinese artist and politician Chen Rong was little known to Western collectors when his Six Dragons went up for auction in 2017. This may explain the regrettably inaccurate estimate that predicted the scroll would attract an offer of less than $ 2 million. However, by the time the hammer sank, the price had skyrocketed to nearly fifty million dollars.

Chen became famous during the Song Dynasty for his portrayal of dragons, which were a symbol of the emperor, and also personified the powerful power of Tao. The scroll on which his dragons appear also contains the artist's poem and inscription, combining poetry, calligraphy and painting in one. Six Dragons is one of the few works left behind by the master dragon artist whose dynamic style continued to influence the depiction of these mythical creatures over the centuries.

5. Huang Binhong

Artist and art critic Huang Binhong lived a long life and had a fruitful career. Although his art went through many stages, it culminated in the last years of his life in Beijing, where he lived from 1937 to 1948. There Huang began to combine the two main Chinese painting systems - ink painting and color painting - into an innovative hybrid.

This new style was not well received by his peers and contemporaries, but appreciated by contemporary collectors and critics. In fact, Juan's work became so popular that his Yellow Mountain was sold to the China Guardian in 2017 for over fifty million dollars. One of the most unusual things about the painting is that Huang, who by then was suffering from an eye disease, painted the beautiful landscape from memory, recalling his previous trips to the scenic mountains of Anhui province.

6. Qi Baishi

One of the most controversial auction results in Chinese art was Qi Baishi's Eagle Perched on a Pine. In 2011, the painting appeared in the China Guardian and was sold for an incredible amount of approximately sixty-six million dollars, making it one of the most expensive works of art ever sold at auction. However, a dispute soon erupted, and the main applicant refused to pay on the grounds that the painting was a fake.

The problem is compounded in the case of Qi Baishi by the fact that he is believed to have created about fifteen thousand separate works during his busy career. Despite working throughout the twentieth century, Qi's work shows no Western influence. His watercolors focus on traditional Chinese art, namely nature, and are presented in a lyrical, whimsical manner. In Eagle Sitting on a Pine, the artist managed to combine simple, bold strokes with a sense of delicacy and texture, symbolizing the qualities of heroism, strength and longevity.

7. Su Shi

One of the scholarly officials in charge of running the Song Empire, Su Shi was a statesman and diplomat, as well as a great artist, prose master, an outstanding poet and an excellent calligrapher. It is partly because of the multifaceted and highly influential nature of his career that the remaining works of art are so valuable, and his Wood and Stone sold at Christie's in 2018 for nearly sixty million dollars.

The ink painting on a hand scroll, more than five meters long, depicts a strangely shaped stone and tree, which together resemble a living creature. Su Shi's painting is complemented by calligraphy by several other artists and calligraphers of the Song Dynasty, including the famous Mi Fu. Their words reflect the meaning of the image, speak of the passage of time, the power of nature and the power of Tao.

8. Huang Tingjian

Setting an auction record at the time for the most expensive work of Chinese art, Huang Tingjian's Di Zhu Ming was sold at Poly auction in 2010 for a staggering sum of nearly sixty-three million dollars. Huang joins Su Shi as one of four calligraphy masters during the Song Dynasty, and this piece is his longest handwritten scroll in existence today. It is believed to represent an important transition in the style of his calligraphy.

This masterpiece is a calligraphic depiction of Huang's epigraph, originally written by the famous Tang Dynasty Chancellor Wei Zheng. The addition of inscriptions by a number of later scholars and artists made the work both longer and more culturally (and materially) valuable.

9. Zhao Wuji

Chinese contemporary artist Zhao Wuji worked tirelessly for five months on his largest and most successful painting, which he titled June-October 1985. The work was commissioned early that year by the renowned architect Yuming Bei, with whom Zhao developed a close personal friendship. after their first meeting in 1952. Bay needed a piece of art to hang in the main building of the Raffles City complex in Singapore, and Zhao provided a striking ten-meter painting characterized by its open and abstract composition, as well as its transcendent and vibrant palette. This work has been sold for almost sixty-six million dollars.

10. Woo Bing

Little is known about the Ming Dynasty artist Wu Bin, but it is clear from his work that he was a devout Buddhist as well as a skilled calligrapher and painter. During his fruitful career, he created more than half a thousand portraits of arhats, those who reached the transcendental state of Nirvana, but in fact it is his landscapes that are most widely known. Wu's ability to capture the power of nature is also conveyed in his ten paintings of one stone, known as the Lingby stone.

These pieces of stone from Lingbi County, Anhui Province have been prized by Chinese scholars for their durability, resonance, beauty and delicate structure. Nearly twenty-eight meters long, the handwritten scroll of Wu provides a panoramic view of one such stone, accompanied by a wealth of written text that also showcases its stunning calligraphy. Depicted from all angles, its two-dimensional drawings provide a panoramic view of the stone.

When it appeared at auction in 1989, the scroll was purchased for the then monumental sum of just over one million dollars. However, his re-appearance sparked an even more extravagant bidding, and Poly's 2010 auction ended with a winning bid of $ seventy-seven million.

11. Qi Baishi

Qi Baishi is again in first place, as his "Twelve Landscape Screens" hold the record for the most expensive Chinese art auction results. A series of landscape ink paintings were sold at Poly auction in 2017 for a staggering $ 140 million, making Qi the first Chinese artist to sell the work for over $ 100 million.

The Twelve Screens, which depict crisp but cohesive landscapes that are the same size and style but different in precise subject matter, epitomize the Chinese interpretation of beauty. Accompanied by intricate calligraphy, the paintings embody the power of nature, evoking a sense of tranquility. He created only one work of this kind. But seven years later, another set of "Twelve Landscape Screens" was created for the Sichuan military leader, which in turn added even more value to this work.

Read also about how Japanese motives appeared in the works of Claude Monet and why he became one of the most beloved artists in the Land of the Rising Sun, where a museum with an individually designed setting is dedicated to his work.