Classic Chinese paintings at Sotheby’s auction sold for $35 million

A set of fine classic Chinese paintings at Sotheby’s auction in New York was sold for over $35 million, which is more than double of what was expected, with a photo of the item with the highest price available below:-

Calligraphy from the Song Dynasty

According to a press release, various classic Chinese paintings brought a total of $35,162,938, despite having pre-sale expectations between $9.7 million to $13.5 million only. As noted by Sotheby’s, nearly 65% realized prices of all the lots were in excess of their pre-sale high estimates, and nine lots have brought prices of more than $1 million, where a noted calligraphy from the Song Dynasty brought the highest price.

Apparently, the calligraphy masterpiece was earlier estimated to reach from $750,000 to $1 million, but was sold for $5,682,500 after only about 10 minutes of bidding, which was said to be the highest achieved at any sale in New York during the larger Asia Week festival.

Nevertheless, the auction was continued in the afternoon and Wen Jia‘s copy of Scenery of Studio of Southern Village, which had an estimated price of from $200,000 to $250,000, was sold for $5,122,500, and was noted to be the a new record for the artist at auction.

Meanwhile, among the other classic Chinese paintings that were sold more than its estimated price is the 1658 scroll painting by the artist-monk Hongren‘s Landscape After Lu Guang which was sold for $1,874,500 but had an earlier estimate of between $1 million to $1.2 million.