Sotheby’s earnings call has this data on the importance of Asian buyers to the overall art market:

48% of purchases by Asian clients took place outside of our Hong Kong salesroom, a trend that we began to see in 2013;

And of the top ten works sold by Sotheby’s in 2016, half were purchased by buyers from Asia.

Moreover, we are very pleased that our relationship with our new largest shareholder has already been helpful to us in China.