Chinese artist's painting fetches highest price at auction

Over 60 pieces of Asian and Western 20th Century and contemporary art went under the hammer at the newly opened Christie's in Shanghai. Featuring in the auction were big names like Picasso and Warhol. But fetching big bucks, was an oil painting by a Chinese artist.

Global art dealer Christie's held its 2014 autumn auction in Shanghai on Friday.

In total around 132 million US dollars worth of art, jewellery and wine went under the hammer in what were the first sales since the firm opened a new auction house in the city on Wednesday.

The pieces on offer included Andy Warhol's 'Flower' which fetched over 242,000 US dollars, and Pablo Picasso's 'Tête d'homme' which sold for over 678,000 dollars. Salvador Dali's 'Œil et lèvres' went for over than 143,000 dollars, while Marc Chagall's 'Les amoureux dans nuit d'hiver' sold for more than 1.39 million.

The biggest seller though was "Untitled 06-3", an oil painting by Chinese contemporary artist Zeng Fanzhi, which fetched over 3.2 million dollars.

"We had 3 auctions with about 150 pieces. The transaction rate was 95%, which is a pretty good score. The final auction price reached 132 million yuan, which is about 21 million US dollars," said Cai Jinqing, from Christie's.

On Wednesday Christie's inaugurated its new auction house on the Bund in Shanghai. Cai said she hoped the new location would let the auctioneers have more interactions with the local art circle.

China led global auction revenues for arts and collectables in 2012 with about 12 billion dollars. according to the French government's Conseil des Ventes art market report.

However, the market has been dogged by a range of problems, including a large-scale Chinese customs probe into tax evasion on art imports that has cooled sentiment. Taxes, regulations, widespread fakes and market manipulation are other risks, experts say.