Art Market Monitor

Overall Sale Volume is One Third of 2008′s Total

New York’s Asia Week is over. We’ll have a more detailed wrap up and analysis next week. In the meantime, here’s Kelly Crow from the Wall Street Journal. The auction houses

brought in about $55.7 million combined from their Asia Week sales of Chinese vases, jade carvings and Indian miniature paintings. The sales total exceeded their top forecasts of $41.3 million but fell below last year’s $157.2 million total. [...] Christie’s won this pared-down round by selling $36.5 million, besting Sotheby’s $19.2 million. [...] This week, Chinese buyers dominated the bidding, but they competed with collectors in Indonesia, Korea and the United Arab Emirates. Western collectors, credited with pushing up prices for contemporary Asian art five years ago, largely stayed home.

Chinese ceramics had the strongest showing of the week. Sotheby’s sold a milky celadon jade vase with floral carvings from the Qing dynasty for $926,500, tripling its high estimate. At least four bidders also fought over a fuschia vase owned by collector Gordon Getty, which went to an anonymous bidder in the salesroom for $902,500, exceeding its $350,000 high estimate.

Asian Art Draws Some Collectors (Wall Street Journal)

Also of Interest:

• Sotheby’s Hong Kong Asia Week Results
  ...
  
• Asia Week Re-Cap
  The WSJ offers an explanation for the strong Asia weeks sales in the face of a worldwide recession. Here’s Alexandra...
  
• Sotheby’s Hong Kong Asia Week Final Tally
  Reuters declares Sotheby’s Hong Kong sales a qualified success: Sotheby’s hammered off a total of HK$691 million ($88.6 million) worth...
  
• Christie’s Asia Week Previewed
  Bloomberg tries to make hay out of the antagonism between the Chinese government and Christie’s over the sale of the...
  
• The Capital of China is London
  Fresh of strong sales in New York and Hong Kong, Asian art’s next stop on the world tour is the...