Photo: RIA Novosti
Chinese collectors are not interested in any one lot of about 60 paintings by Russian artists who were represented at the auction in the Chinese city of Xiamen (Xiamen) on Sunday.
Bidding subjects of Western art — from painting to the Russian European furniture — took place last weekend in the city of Xiamen in southeast China. Auction house Huachen adopted in China\’s 20 largest collection of British auction houses, including MacDougall\’s, presented the work of Yuri Pimenov, Konstantin Maximov, Tkachev brothers and other Russian artists.
Earlier, the head of the auction house Catherine McDougall said that the purpose of participation in the auction was the «tastes of collectors understand the Chinese market.» At Sunday\’s auction, which was broadcast live on the internet, none of the works of Russian artists was not sold.
«There are two reasons. I think in China have brought not the best work, in addition, the auction house is not the strongest here» — Said the agency expert familiar with the situation at the local art market.
According to his estimates, the cost of a number of works of Russian artists had been overstated. For example, he noted that a small drawing by Ilya Repin, previously estimated at 360-400 million yuan (58-645 thousand dollars), could not find a new owner if the cost is cheaper. The main reason for the unsuccessful bid for Chinese expert named range far from the financial and cultural centers of China place a bid. In addition, he said, the Chinese collectors do not see the possibility of growth of the price of imported Russian masterpieces.
«Today, almost no one buys a painting in order to admire them» , — Said, explaining that «the art — it is an investment, and the buyer wants to be sure that the amount invested them back at a profit.» «Russian art sellers need to do a lot of work to China came to believe that the price of each painting has growth potential,» — he added.
According to the organizers of the trading results, the new owners found only 23% of the lots, the total volume of transactions amounted to 9.7 million yuan (1.5 million dollars).