Beijing museum displays Qi Baishi's landscape paintings

The paintings by the artist Qi Baishi, one of the most well-known modern Chinese painters, depict the landscape of Guilin and the painter's hometown Hunan.

Chinese painter Qi Baishi's 12 landscape paintings are now on display at Beijing's Poly Art Museum. Painted in 1925, the set of paintings are one of the master's most representative landscape paintings and also the largest landscape frame ever revealed to the public.

Noted as "one of the highest selling paintings" before its auction, the modern Chinese artwork Qi Baishi's 12 Landscape has been unveiled at Poly International Auction's 10th anniversary celebrations last week.

The paintings by the artist Qi Baishi, one of the most well-known modern Chinese painters, depict the landscape of Guilin and the painter's hometown Hunan.

They were painted in 1925 for Chen Zilin, a famous doctor in the Republican period.

The set of paintings were intended as a gift on his 50th birthday.

According to the auction house, the artworks are likely to make headlines, this time for their values.

"Currently, on average, each of Qi's work is worth about 100 million yuan or about 16 million U.S. dollars. It's a record made three years ago in Beijing. And this time the lot comprises of 12 works, so I think it's safe to say the lowest bid is over 1000 million yuan or 160 US dollars," said Zhao Xu, executive director of Poly International Auction Co. Ltd.

The paintings will be on display at Poly Art Museum in Beijing till next Monday.