The Wall Street Journal’s Mary Lane has some interesting data tucked away in her story about Sotheby’s new venture with TEFAF in Beijing. (Btw, what’s most interesting about the Sotheby’s /TEFAF collaboration is the emphasis it shows on bringing classic Wester works of art to Chinese buyers, a flow of cultural products that has only recently begun. But maybe Sotheby’s knows something the rest of us don’t.) Meanwhile, it is worth noting the Chinese preference for buying at auction:

Chinese buyers are also known to favor bidding at auction over dealing with galleries, a shopping habit that has already transformed Hong Kong—with its packed calendar of art auctions—into a major art hub to rival London and New York.

While auctions accounted for only 48% of the global art market in 2012, they made up 70% of art sales in China, according to statistics from market researcher Art Economics.

Sotheby’s Plans Beijing Art Fair (Wall Street Journal)