Antiques sold at high prices

At a Hong Kong auction, London dealer Richard Littleton purchased Buddhist figure, bearing the mark of Ming-era Emperor Xuande and 500-years old for $9 million, more than double against presale estimation. He says this is very reasonable price for such a rare piece and is confident that this will a good investment. After the globla crisis for the first time any  European has purchased from city auction. 

There were 333 antiques offered to about 400 bidders. 212 lots sold for HK$673 million and 2 days of auction are left. Another highlight: 30 antique pieces carved rhinoceros horns fetched almost 6 times the presale expectation.

Two lots sold for HK$40 million each which is a record price for rhino-horn item.

A libation cup carved with eight stallions fetched HK$26.4 million. 

Qing Dynasty box carved with a roundels of branches was sold for HK$6 million.

China's stock tycoon Liu Yigian purchased a dragon-motif wooden sear in October for a record HK$86 million.

Shitao expects that 300-year-old album of eight leaves will fetch HK$120 million.

Ratio of Chinese bidders to total bidders rose to 90% from 50% few years back. 

Princess Diana's Family

Princess  Diana

A painting by Peter Paul Rubens that hung in the childhood home of the late Diana, Princess of Wales, is among 20 million pounds ($29 million) worth of Spencer family possessions being sold in London this summer.

The Spencers, through their trustees, were encouraged to sell after record auction prices such as the 29.2 million pounds paid for a Raphael drawing of a muse at Christie’s in December, said Rock.

Another Rubens rediscovery THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS, fetched 49.5 million pounds, a record for any Old Master, at Sotheby’s in 2002 against a low estimate of 4 million pounds.

The trustees are also selling items that formally furnished Spencer House, in London’s St. James’s district, which the family vacated in the 1920s.

On July 8, Christie’s will offer more than 40 lots of 18th century English and French furniture, porcelain and decorative objects. These include a set of 12 George II mahogany dining chairs designed by Spencer House architect John Vardy, valued at as much as 1 million pounds.

DIANA: A CELEBRATION, an exhibition commemorating the life of the sister of Charles, 9th Earl Spencer, has been an attraction at the much-altered 16th-century house since 1998.

Bidders will be lured by lots such as a two-seat Regency period coach used by Lord and Lady Spencer for state occasions, estimated at 50000 pounds to 80000 pounds. 

Klein's Naked Model painting may fetch $ 10 million in New York.

A 1960s work by the French conceptual artist Yves Klein is expected to fetch about $10 million at an auction in New York, Christie’s International said today.

Klein’s 9-foot-wide “Anthropometrie” painting “ANT 93, Le Buffle” (“The Buffalo”) will be offered in Christie’s May 11 sale of contemporary art. The work was painted in the artist’s trademark “International Klein Blue” in 1960-61 on paper, now laid down on canvas, using a naked female model as a “living brush” to create the image of a buffalo.

“This is the second-largest ANT painting to come to auction,” Francis Outred, Christie’s European head of contemporary art, said in an interview. “Very few of his works make a specific reference to an animal. He’s using a naked female figure to make an image of a beast.”