Beijing. A $50 million Rembrandt (“Portrait of a Man with Hands on Hips”) is proudly displayed on the wall of a luxury hotel in the Chinese capital. To keep him company, among others, works by Picasso, Renoir, Chagall, Toulouse-Lautrec and Delacroix, in a sumptuous overview of 1860th-5th century European painting. This is not an exhibition intended to present the wonders of Western art to the citizens of the Empire of the Sun, but an auction, organized by Sotheby's, aimed at the old and new riches of the Asian giant. Of the paintings on display, only the Rembrandt carries a price tag, all the others do not, flaunting an "if you have to ask, it means you can't afford it" attitude. First Christie's and then Sotheby's. In fact, Christie's organized the first independent auction in mainland China in September, after its owner, François Pinault, donated two bronze animal heads to China, stolen in 500 during the looting of the Old Summer Palace of Beijing, as symbolic compensation for the plundering of Chinese art treasures perpetrated by Westerners. Rival Sotheby's does not want to be outdone and, after signing an agreement with GeHua Art, an indigenous state-owned company, sets out to conquer the Chinese art market. What the two famous auction houses readily understood is that Chinese collectors, after years of devoting themselves to the national artistic heritage, are now turning their attention to Western artists. “What we have noticed in the last XNUMX years” says the president of Sotheby's Asia Patti Wong “is that there is a real hunger for Western art among collectors in this country and purchases of works by European and US artists have increased by XNUMX%".
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/china/national-news/2013/11/30/394813/Western-auctioneers.htm
