Choppy Waters
NEW YORK
New York’s September auction series kicked off with Sotheby’s Asia Week, which included sales of classical Chinese paintings as well as antiquities. The 68-lot Fine Classical Chinese Paintings and Calligraphy sale raised a total of USD 3.55 million, a smaller haul compared to the USD 7.26 million and USD 5.66 million brought in at the 100-pluslot sales this March and last September, respectively. The highest-earning modern lot was Zhang Daqian’s 1967 landscape Ode to Red Cliff After Kuncan, which edged past its USD 380,000 high estimate to attain USD 400,000. The modern master’s vertical ink-and-color painting Recluse in Lofty Mountain (1966) exceeded its estimates of USD 150,000–250,000, hammering at USD 312,500. Chinese ink art pioneer Fu Baoshi’s hanging scroll Mountain Rain (1959) tripled its USD 60,000 high estimate to fetch USD 187,500. The lot was last acquired for USD 17,900 at Sotheby’s Hong Kong’s Modern and Contemporary Chinese Paintings sale back in November 1982.
