An unknown collector forked out HK$53.8 million (US$6.92 million) yesterday for a 1920s painting by a renowned Chinese artist, setting a new record price for Chinese oil paintings.
The price for Slave and Lion by Xu Beihong (
The seller was an unnamed Singapore collector and the auction house declined to provide information about the buyer.
PHOTO: AFP
The price exceeded the previous set by Taiwanese artist Chen Chengbo's (
Another of Xu's oil paintings, Silly Old Man Moves a Mountain, was sold in Beijing five months ago for 30 million yuan (US$3.82 million).
The latest record-breaking paint-ing demonstrated Xu's technique of combining a Western sense of form and Chinese line of drawing.
It was one of the very few works Xu created during his stay in Berlin in the early 1920s, Christie's said.
Slave and Lion, from 1924, depicts a story of a slave and a lion in Europe. The slave, Androcles, who had helped a lion with a thorn in its paw, later ran into the same lion in a cruel human-animal battle staged in a Roman theater. The emperor was moved by the reunion and freed the slave.
The auction yesterday included about 2,500 classical and modern paintings, luxury watches, jewelry and ceramics, most of which came from the region.
Competition was keen for some of the other notable works on offer at the 20th Century Chinese Art Sale. These included Potted Chrysanthemum in a Blue and White Jardiniere by Sanyu (
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary
RSS