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Dec. 25 (NBD) -- The oil painter Chen Yifei's painting Warm Spring in the Jade Pavilion was sold for 149.5 million yuan (22.8 million U.S. dollars) at China Guardian Auction's autumn auction in 19th December, a record price for the painter's works and for Chinese realistic oil paintings.

This year, altogether there are 16 artworks that have been sold for over 100 million yuan (15.2 million U.S. dollars), ten of which were auctioned by Poly International Action, 62.5 percent of the total.

The remaining six were sold by China Guardian Auction, Beijing Council International Auction and Xiling Yinshe Auction.

The number of auctioned works over 100 million yuan (15.2 million U.S. dollars) in 2017 is the same as that of 2016, with 7 works more compared with the number of 2015.

In 2009, Xu Yang's Pacifying the Western Regions and Offering the Captives painted in China's Qing dynasty Qianlong period, was purchased at 134.4 million yuan (20.5 million U.S. dollars) at the "Fifteenth Anniversary Auction" held by Sungari International, the first Chinese painting surpassing 100 million yuan (15.2 million U.S. dollars).

Since four such works emerged at auction in 2009, Chinese artwork market has witnessed not only the fanaticism of capitals but also the downturns during the following 8 years.

In 17th December this year, a set of ink-brush panels, which were entitled Twelve Landscape Screens and painted by Chinese well-known artist Qi Baishi in 1925, was sold at auction for 931.5 million yuan (141.8 million U.S. dollars) by Poly International Auction, which broke the worldwide record price of auctioned Chinese artwork.

According to the statistics, auction houses backed by Poly Group have gained the most sales turnover of about 9.78 billion yuan (1.5 billion U.S. dollars) this year, followed by China Guardian's second most turnover of 4.51 billion yuan (686.6 million U.S. dollars).

In the purpose of grabing more market shares as well as capitals, Chinese auction companies have been listed their stocks in different ways recently.

As Poly Culture Group Co,. Ltd. completed its initial public offering (IPO) at Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2014, around 10,000 artworks have been sold at auctions held by Poly Group-backed companies this year, with a total amount of about 10 billion yuan (1.5 billion U.S. dollars).

However, the stock of Poly Culture didn't show an outstanding performance in the past two months. The stock fell by 24.68 percent from 16th October to 15th December, with a lowest closing price of $HK 13.84 (1.8 U.S. dollars) per share.

The other auction giant China Guardian purchased stakes in New York-based Sotheby's for over 200 million U.S. dollars last year, becoming the biggest shareholder of the British auction house.

In 2017, China Guardian has achieved a sales turnover of nearly 5 billion yuan (761.2 million U.S. dollars), selling around 15,000 artworks and its stock has increased 30.53 percent as of 22th December, higher than 25.26 percent, rise of Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) since 2017. 

Email: zhanglingxiao@nbd.com.cn