Joseph Lau (劉鑾雄), Hong Kong’s fifth-richest man, yesterday bought a pair of imperial cloisonne enamel double crane censers for HK$129.5 million (US$16.7 million) at Christie’s International auction in the city. The crane censers, which were expected to sell for more than HK$120 million, are from the Fonthill House collection of Alfred Morrison, a 19th-century English collector of Chinese art, according to Christie’s.
The purchase adds to other art collected by Lau, who controls Chinese Estate Holdings Ltd (華人置業集團). The property magnate, valued at US$6 billion by Forbes Asia in February, paid US$17.4 million for Mao, one of Andy Warhol’s portraits of the late Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東) in November 2006, a record at that time.
The crane censers may have been commissioned by Qing Dynasty Emperor Qianlong (乾隆帝) while he was still a prince as a birthday gift for his father, according to a press release by London-based Christie’s.
Christie’s had estimated its weeklong sale of wine, art, antiques, watches and jewelry at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre would total more than HK$1.7 billion. A Sotheby’s sale in October raised HK$3.09 billion, beating its previous record in the city in April by more than 50 percent. The two are a benchmark of demand for luxury items in Asia.
On Tuesday, Christie’s sold HK$669 million of classical and modern Chinese paintings, 91 percent more than a year earlier and more than double the company’s estimate of HK$260 million.
“There are some quality paintings being auctioned,” said Ye Maozhong (葉茂中), 43, owner of a Beijing-based advertising company, who bought four Xu Beihong (徐悲鴻, 1895-1953) paintings for about HK$30 million.
“The prices are reasonable and I am happy — I did what I came here to do,” said Ye, wearing a red and black sweater, black jeans and thick-rimmed glasses.
The Song of the Pipa Player by Fu Baoshi (傅抱石, 1904-1965) sparked one of several intense bidding battles in a Tuesday afternoon session that was won by an unidentified Chinese buyer, soaring past the HK$40 million high bestimate. Chinese buyers bought 19 of the top 20 lots, including three ink paintings by Zhang Daqian (張大千, 1899-1983) that fetched a combined HK$123 million.
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