Zeng Fanzhi Gets Globe Girdling Shows at Hauser + Wirth This Fall: Zeng Fanzhi has been shopping for Western gallery for several years. He tried Gagosian; he tried Acquavella. In March, he signed with Hauser + Wirth. Enid Tsui announces in the South China Morning Post that the gallery will give him three simultaneous shows in London, Zurich and Hong Kong:

• The theme for all three gallery shows is how Zeng explores different possibilities with painting. In Zurich, the exhibition features new landscapes. In London, the focus is on his figurative works. In Hong Kong, there will be paintings and drawings that draw on both Chinese and Western traditions. …

Not All Chinese Works of Art Get Bid Up by the Chinese: It turns out the buyer of Sunday’s €4.9m Qianlong moonflask in central France was not Chinese, even if the auction house did play the PRC’s national anthem before the sale. The South China Morning Post reports that the buyer is a French woman:

• The buyer, who bid over the phone during the auction at Artigny chateau in Montbazon, central France, is expected to keep the flask at her flat in Paris but it could potentially be loaned to a museum in future, the auctioneer said. …

Sotheby’s Goes on the Offensive in the Antiquities Market: The antiquities market has become a venue for grandstanding on the part of governments around the world. New York’s district attorney Cyrus Vance has empowered the stunt prosecutor assistant district attorney Matthew Bogdanos. Turkey and Italy have recently launched high profile but murky cases. Now Sotheby’s is fighting back against interference from Greece with a suit seeking to clarify the owner’s rights. Here’s how the Financial Times described the case:

• The statuette, dating from the eighth century BC and given an estimate of $150,000 to $250,000, was due to have been sold in Sotheby’s New York salerooms on May 14 […]. On the day before the auction, Greece’s culture ministry sent the auctioneer a letter demanding it withdraw the bronze from the sale and help with returning it to Greece. […] Sotheby’s rejected the Greek claims, pointing to the 1967 sale of the horse at a public Swiss auction before it passed into Symes’s hands and thence to the Barnets’ collection. Nonetheless, it pulled the statue from the May sale at the eleventh hour, since the existence of the claim damaged its marketability. Arguing that Greece had no right to interfere in the sale and could provide no information as to when or by whom it had been stolen or removed from the country, Sotheby’s said it was asking the court “to clarify the rights of legitimate owners of ancient works of art and protect clients against baseless claims”.