Auctions
By the Numbers: A Breakdown of Results From Christie’s Hong Kong’s 20th/21st Century Evening Sale, November 2023
Get the stats behind the spin.
![Christie's HK Christie's HK](https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/11/21391-Lot-11-1024x548.jpg)
Get the stats behind the spin.
Vivienne Chow
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Christie’s Hong Kong concluded its autumn evening art sales on Tuesday (November 28) with two auctions held back to back: the 20th/21st Century Art Evening Sale, which we will focus on in this report, and the Post-Millennium Evening Sale.
The main event of the night, the 20th/21st Century sale, delivered respectable results despite the gloomy vibe that has hovered over auctions in the region throughout 2023. The hammer total slightly surpassed the presale low estimate, even accounting for withdrawn lots.
Although the top lot successfully found a buyer, several blue-chip names went unsold or sold at prices that were below or just barely met their low estimates. Works by the likes of Lee Ufan, Rudolf Stingel, Liu Ye, Takashi Murakami, George Condo, and Liu Wei did not find buyers. Paintings by Zhang Xiaogang and Yoshitomo Nara hammered at prices well below their estimates. Withdrawals included works by Wassily Kandinsky, Nara, Keith Haring, and Wang Xingwei.
Nonetheless, the sale set several records. Italian artist Salvo’s colorful 1994 landscape painting Il Mattino (The Morning) hammered at HK$6.9 million ($889,845), or HK$8.7 million ($1.1 million) with fees, a new record for the artist. Nature’s Inspiration (1963), an enigmatic canvas by Cheong Soo Pieng, set a new record for the Singaporean artist, achieving a hammer price of HK$9.2 million ($1.2 million) after a long bidding war between two phone bidders. The third-party guaranteed work made a total of HK$11.5 million ($1.5 million) including fees.
Sanyu, Femme nue sur un tapis (Nude on Tapestry) (1929). Photo: courtesy of Christie’s.
Below, the story by the numbers…