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Sotheby's Hong Kong Achieves US$4,680,000 for Sanyu's Masterpiece

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Written by Lily Lee   
Thursday, 08 October 2009 01:52

Sotheby’s Hong Kong achieved the second highest auction price for Sanyu. - Photo: Sotheby´s.

HONG KONG.- Today at Sotheby’s Hong Kong 20th Century Chinese Art Autumn Sale 2009, Sanyu’s monumental Lotus et Poissons Rouges commanded HK$36,500,000/ US$4,680,000, selling to a Chinese buyer over the telephone after heated competition with five other bidders from across Asia (est. HK$15-25 million/ US$1,940,000-3,230,000). Sotheby’s achieved the second highest auction price for Sanyu as well as an auction record for a landscape painting by the artist for this rare masterpiece, which has been unseen by the public for over half a century.

Sanyu's (Chang Yu, 1901-1966) monumental Lotus et Poissons Rouges (Lotus and Red Fish) Est. HK$15-25 million. Photo: Sotheby'sZao Wou-ki’s 7.4.61 was sold for HK$15,780,000/ US$2,023,077 against an estimate of HK$8-12 million/ US$1-1.5 million. After an intense bidding battle between at least three bidders, this significant work was eventually sold to an anonymous bidder in the room.

Lily Lee, Sotheby’s Head of 20th Century Chinese Art Department said, “We were pleased with the results we achieved today, particularly for the masterworks by Sanyu and Zao Wu-ki. We recognized Lotus et Poissons Rouges immediately as a work of exceptional importance, carefully cultivating top collectors through our pre-sale efforts to result in the atmosphere that created the strong price achieved today. This demonstrates once again that collectors are willing to pay premium prices for noble, seminal works that are fresh to the market. We are honored to have been entrusted to sell such extraordinary paintings, and we look forward to offering more quality, rare works with great provenance to the market.”

If Sanyu struggled with his paintings, he did his best to hide the evidence. The image takes possession of the canvas as if it had simply been waiting for the right moment to manifest itself. In one sense this may be close to what actually happened: one intuits that in most paintings a long period of reflection preceded the physical work with the brush, bringing to mind the Chinese axiom yi zai bi xian: "the conception precedes the brush"as indeed was necessary in China, where the surfaces of paper and silk did not allow of much reworking. As a procedure transposed to oil painting this made possible the wonderfully relaxed naturalness that provides Sanyu's works with their unique charm..."  / From Sanyu, by Jonathan Hay.


Sotheby's was the first auction house in Hong Kong, opening an office in 1974 and holding its first auction that same year. Since then, Hong Kong has become central to Sotheby's involvement with the Asian art market. In 1995, Sotheby's began staging travelling exhibitions in China.

Sotheby's Hong Kong holds biannual sales of Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, Fine Chinese Paintings, Contemporary Asian Art, 20th Century Chinese Art, Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Paintings, Magnificent Jewels & Jadeite, Important Watches and Wine in April and October.

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