Chinese billionaire Liu Yiqian, who burst into headlines in recent years for his multi-million-dollar art buys, has broken into New York real estate. Liu has bought an apartment in a high-rise facing Central Park for $23.5 million, which represents a steep discount of 25 percent from its original sale price, reports the Wall Street Journal.
Perhaps Liu’s most famous purchase yet is of an Amedeo Modigliani nude, which he won at Christie’s New York for his Shanghai museum in development, the Long Museum.
He had already been in the news for the $36.3 million purchase of a porcelain cup at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, from which he then irreverently drank on camera.
Liu Yiqian’s new apartment at One57. Courtesy Douglas Elliman.
Since then, Liu has been spotted buying major works, including taking home a gargantuan canvas by German artist Gerhard Richter at Art Basel in Basel this summer.
The 4,500-square-foot apartment is in One57, a luxury high-rise designed by Pritzker Prize–winning French architect Christian de Portzamparc. The building stands some 1,000 feet tall, and Liu’s new Manhattan pied-à-terre features views not only of Central Park from the living room but also of the Statue of Liberty from the bedroom, reports the Journal.
Real estate salesman Jeremy Hu confirmed the sale to the Journal, adding that Liu feels he got “a good price.” Handling the sale were brokers Noble Black and Emily Sertic of Douglas Elliman Real Estate.