Sotheby's said Saturday it sold a record HK$3.49 billion ($447 million) worth of Asian and Chinese art, fine wines, watches and jewels at its eight-day Hong Kong auction. The auction house offered 3,600 lots in eight categories in what its Asia CEO Kevin Ching described as the "most successful Hong Kong sale series in its history", surpassing the HK$3.09 raised at its autumn sale last year.
Hong Kong has become the world's third largest auction hub after New York and London, thanks to the rising political and economic prowess of China, with mainland millionaires regularly among top bidders. "Remarkably, virtually every day saw records broken," Ching said in a statement.
The record results came despite a disappointing response to a much-anticipated sale of imperial Chinese porcelain on Thursday, with many prized lots unsold. The sale of the Meiyintang Collection - 77 pieces of porcelain collected over half a century by a European collector - had been expected to be the highlight of the week.
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